Word List
Kindergarten Sight Words
The 25 most common words in English, from the Fry list, sorted for a kindergartner: 16 to sound out and only nine to learn by heart, with worksheets for both.
How many sight words should a kindergartner know?
There is no required number. The Common Core standard for kindergarten, RF.K.3c, asks children to “read common high-frequency words by sight” and names ten examples without giving a count. School lists commonly ask for anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred. Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan suggests “perhaps 20 words or so, with at least 10 of those being high frequency words” by the end of kindergarten.
This list is sized to match: 25 words, of which only nine need memorizing. How to teach sight words covers how to practice them, how much is enough, and what to do if your school’s list is much longer. For the nine that do need memorizing, sight word games has nine ways to get the turns in with nothing but paper. Our guide to what sight words are puts every grade side by side.
Which list are these words from?
They are the first 25 words on the Fry list, Edward Fry’s ranking of the most common words in English, which assigns no grades, so giving these 25 to kindergarten is our choice. If your school uses the Dolch list instead, its kindergarten words are the pre-primer and primer levels, sorted the same way on our Dolch page.
Which of these words can your child sound out?
Sixteen of the 25 follow regular spelling patterns, so they are phonics practice rather than memory work, though eleven use a pattern that comes a little after the first letter sounds. Only nine have a part that no pattern explains, and those are the ones to learn by heart.
The sort below starts from what most kindergartners can do by the end of the year: say the sound each letter makes and blend short words like cat and sun, which is what CVC words practice. It sorts words by how they are read, not how they are spelled. A word can be easy to read and still awkward to spell.
If your child knows their letter sounds but cannot yet push them together into a word, start with that instead: my child knows letter sounds but can’t sound out words.
Which kindergarten sight words can your child sound out?
These 16 can be sounded out. Five need nothing but letter sounds: a child who can blend c-a-t can read a-n-d, i-n and o-n. The other eleven use a pattern that comes a little after the first letter sounds: th in that, with and this, s saying /z/ in is, as and his, a vowel that says its name at the end of a word (a, he, be, I), and or in for. Read those together and name the pattern until it has been taught.
Treat all of them as reading practice rather than memory work: say the sounds, then the word. Drilling them as whole shapes teaches a child to guess at words they could have read. If the first five are hard, start with CVC words, and words with th has more practice for that, with and this. On the sound boxes sheet, your child says each word and writes one spelling in each box, one box per sound.
- and
- a
- in
- is
- that
- it
- he
- for
- on
- as
- with
- his
- I
- at
- be
- this
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Printables for Kindergarten Sight Words to Sound Out
- Kindergarten Sight Words to Sound Out: Word Cards (PDF)16 cards · 2 pages
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- Kindergarten Sight Words to Sound Out: Trace and Write (PDF)16 words · 2 pages
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Which kindergarten sight words have to be learned by heart?
These nine are heart words, words that break the usual spelling patterns and need to be learned by heart. Our heart words guide shows which part of each one to learn by heart.
- the
- of
- to
- you
- was
- are
- they
- have
- from
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Printables for Kindergarten Heart Words
- Kindergarten Heart Word Cards (PDF)9 cards · 1 page
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- Kindergarten Heart Word Bingo (PDF)9 words · 7 pages
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- Kindergarten Heart Words: Trace and Write (PDF)9 words · 2 pages
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