First Grade English: Dolch First Grade Word List

Advancing into first grade means expanding your sight word vocabulary to include words that express time, condition, location, and question relationships. The Dolch First Grade Word List contains forty-one indispensable words that appear repeatedly in first-grade chapter books, informational readers, and fairy tales. In this chapter, you will study these words in detail, organize them into meaningful categories, and practice reading them with instant fluency.

The 41 First-Grade Dolch Words

Here are the forty-one words that every first grader will master. Each word is a critical building block for reading longer, more intricate sentences.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 DOLCH FIRST GRADE MASTER LIST               |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|  after    again    an       any      as       ask     by    |
|  could    every    fly      from     give     going   had   |
|  has      her      him      his      how      just    know  |
|  let      live     may      of       old      once    open  |
|  over     put      round    some     stop     take    thank |
|  them     then     think    walk     were     when          |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

The Power of Forty-One Words

Together with the Pre-Primer and Primer words, mastering these forty-one words means you can read up to seventy percent of the running words in almost any children's book! This frees your brain to concentrate on cracking unfamiliar vocabulary words and visualizing the thrilling story.

Categorizing the First-Grade List

Organizing words into conceptual families helps your brain store and retrieve them with ease.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 CATEGORIES OF 1ST GRADE WORDS               |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Category         | Dolch First Grade Words                 |
|  -----------------+-----------------------------------------|
|  Time & Sequence  | after, again, once, then, when          |
|  Questions & How  | how, when                               |
|  Location & Space | by, from, over, round                   |
|  People & Pronouns| an, her, him, his, them                 |
|  Action & Doing   | ask, fly, give, going, know, let, live, |
|                   | open, put, stop, take, thank, think,    |
|                   | walk                                    |
|  Quantity & State | any, every, of, old, round, some, were  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Time and Sequence Words

Words like "after," "again," "once," "then," and "when" are the traffic directors of stories. They tell you in what order events happen. When you see "once," you might be starting a fairy tale ("Once upon a time"). When you see "then" and "after," you know the plot is advancing forward in time.

Direction and Preposition Words

Words like "by," "from," "over," and "round" tell you where objects are moving or resting. The bird flew "over" the house; the girl walked "by" the pond; the gift came "from" a friend.

Tricky First-Grade Spelling Patterns

Notice that several of these words feature phonetic rules you learned earlier! "Know" features the silent k (kn); "think" and "thank" feature the digraph th and the glued ending -ink/-ank; "round" features the diphthong ou. Recognizing these phonics patterns helps you understand why the words look the way they do.

Irregular First-Grade Power Words

A few words on the first-grade list have historical spellings that require special attention.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 TRICKY SIGHT WORD SPOTLIGHT                 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                             |
|   Word: "COULD"                                             |
|   Tricky Part: -OULD sounds like /ood/ (rhymes with would)   |
|   Memory Clue: "Oh, you lucky duck!" (o-u-l-d)              |
|                                                             |
|   Word: "OF"                                                |
|   Tricky Part: The single 'f' sounds like a buzzing /v/!    |
|   Pronounced: /uv/                                          |
|                                                             |
|   Word: "ONCE"                                              |
|   Tricky Part: Sounds like it starts with 'w': /wuns/!      |
|                                                             |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Mastering "Were" vs. "Where"

Look closely at "were." It sounds like /wer/. Notice that it does NOT have an 'h'! When you add an 'h' after the w, it becomes "where" (asking about a place). Keeping "were" (they were playing) separate from "where" (where is my shoe?) is a mark of an advanced first-grade scholar.

Practice Exercises

Exercise 1: Read the following story passage aloud, paying close attention to the bolded first-grade Dolch words: Once upon a time, an old owl flew over every tree. He could ask them how to fly round and round again. Then he stopped to think from his branch.

Exercise 2: Choose five words from the Dolch First Grade list and write an original, complete sentence for each word.

Exercise Solutions

Solution to Exercise 1: Students should read the passage fluently, smoothly decoding the first-grade sight words: once, an, old, over, every, could, ask, them, how, fly, round, again, then, think, and from without stumbling.

Solution to Exercise 2: A student could write: I know how to tie my shoes by myself. She will give her brother some sweet apples. We were going to walk over the wooden bridge. Please put your coat by the front door. Can you thank him for the wonderful gift?