Dolch second grade sight words

By second grade, most of the words on the Dolch list are decodable. Green, sleep, right, first and found follow vowel-team and r-controlled patterns that second graders are learning anyway. The list is a good check on phonics: if a student still has to memorize green, the ee pattern isn't secure yet.

The irregular words are fewer and more stubborn. Their is the classic one: the th and the r are regular, and eir is a spelling no lesson teaches. In been, the first e says /i/, which no lesson teaches for that spelling. Many uses a for /e/. Those three, plus would, are worth a heart-word routine.

Two words sit outside the engine. Don't is a contraction, so we leave it to check by hand; teach it with do + not. Buy has no entry in our lexicon, so its letters are not analyzed here, but it is taught as a heart word in the sequence.

1. Check the decodable words against your phonics lessons first. If green or right is still a struggle, review the vowel team before adding more sight words.
2. Teach their with there and they're as three spellings with three meanings. Start with their alone, then add the others weeks later.
3. Use word chains with the regular parts: wash, wish, which.
4. Contractions: write do + not = don't, and show where the apostrophe takes the place of the o.

• Why does the cat always sleep on the wall?
• Would you pull the green bag for us?
• Wash your hands before you sit down.
• I found five sticks by the road.
• Please write which one you wish to buy.
• Those girls sing very well.
• Don't tell them where we have been.
• Both of us made a wish upon a star.

Every word comes from the public-domain Dolch lists (Dolch, 1936 and 1948). We do not use the Fry list. Each word was run through our decodability engine, which checks the word's spelling units against a pronouncing dictionary and against the lesson in which each spelling and sound is taught.

"Readable by sound from" is the earliest lesson at which every part of the word has been taught. "Heart word at" is the lesson where the sequence teaches it as a heart word. Irregular letters are the ones whose spelling and sound the sequence never teaches. Contractions and words missing from our lexicon are marked to check by hand.