Reading is the most important skill a child will ever learn. It is impossible for a person to live a productive life without being able to read, i.e.; becoming literate. In most schools, children are expected to be able to read simple sentences and stories by the end of first grade. By third grade, they are expected to be able to read almost any kind of text. As well as being able to "sound out" (phonetically decode) regularly spelled words, children must also master reading basic, common sight words.

A list of English sight words, The Dolch Word List, was compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD, in 1948. The list was originally published in his book "Problems in Reading". Dolch compiled the list based on words used in children's reading books in the 1930s and 40s. The list contains 220 "service words" that must be quickly recognized in order to achieve reading fluency.

The Dolch Word List is also called Sight Words or The Dolch 220. It includes the most frequently used words in the English language. Sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text. Therefore, teaching The Dolch Word List is a crucial goal of education in grades kindergarten through 3.

Many of the 220 Dolch words cannot be "sounded out" and have to be learned by "sight," that is memorized. The list is divided into grade levels. It includes pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs. The basic list excludes nouns, which make up a separate 95 word list.

Because fluency in reading the Dolch 220 and the 95 nouns is essential to literacy, a variety of techniques are used to teach them, including: reading Dolch literature books, using flash cards, playing games, and writing activities. Repetition and practice are very important in making recognition of sight words automatic. Once this core of basic sight words has been memorized, children read more fluently, with greater comprehension.

Dolch Words / Dolch Sight Words是美国学者E.W. Dolch 在二次世界大战之前，针对当时英语儿童读物做了系统分析和统计后整理出来的英语初级阅读中最常使用的220个词，加上儿童图书中经常出现的95个名词。这些词在英语教科书，图书，报章，杂志中的出现率为60 to 85%。

   Dolch Sight Words共分5个等级，包含了不少抽象意义的介词和代词，比如：the, of, from on等单字，这些字如果没有和其他意义的单字联系起来，人们很难明白其意思。Dolch Sight Words也包含许多“较不符合拼读法（Phonics）规则”特性的单字。比如：were，one, come, eight, 等字。这些字不能通过拼读法认知，而必须通过视觉认识/记忆才能掌握，这也是为什么Dolch Words被称为视觉词（sight words）的原因。

 由于这些字是初期阅读物中出现频率很高的单字，所以如果孩子能够在阅读初级阶段，首先掌握这些Sight Words，就能为他们在英语阅读方面打下不可缺少的坚实基础。

如果孩子单学习拼读法，而忽视sight words的学习，那么他们的仍然无法顺利阅读英语。这里的关键在于sight words，因为phonics兼具发音，拼字既阅读的功能，而sight words在孩子的阅读材料中占有将近60%-80%的份额， 也就是能够帮助孩子拥有超过85%的阅读能力。因此孩子在学习英语阅读时，phonics 和 sight words的学习必须同时并行，相辅相成，两者缺一不可，这是孩子学习英语最直接，最简单的基石之一。

按单词出现的频率:

按年级分类：