SpellChirp

41 words · ages 6–7 · 1st grade and Year 2

Dolch first grade: all 41 words

Forty-one, including the ones that sound nothing like they look — could, know, of. Every word is below — copy them, print the page, or tap once to have SpellChirp hatch the lot with definitions, audio and syllables.
  1. after
  2. again
  3. an
  4. any
  5. as
  6. ask
  7. by
  8. could
  9. every
  10. fly
  11. from
  12. give
  13. giving
  14. had
  15. has
  16. her
  17. him
  18. his
  19. how
  20. just
  21. know
  22. let
  23. live
  24. may
  25. of
  26. old
  27. once
  28. open
  29. over
  30. put
  31. round
  32. some
  33. stop
  34. take
  35. thank
  36. them
  37. then
  38. think
  39. walk
  40. were
  41. when

Practise these 41 words, free

One tap puts the whole list in the nest. Each word arrives with a definition a child can read, audio and its syllables — then SpellChirp reads them out, marks the spelling and brings back the ones that went wrong. No account needed to start, and no advertising on either plan.

Add all 41 wordsPrint a practice sheet

Where this list comes from

Compiled by Edward William Dolch in 1936 from the words most common in children's books. Long out of copyright and in the public domain.

The 220 words that make up around half of everything a child reads, plus 95 picture nouns. Most cannot be sounded out — they have to be known on sight, which is why they turn up in spelling homework year after year.

How to practise a list this long

Not all at once. Five to ten words a week is the pace that sticks; a list of a hundred is a term’s work, not a weekend’s, and a child who meets ten words five times learns more than one who meets fifty once.

Sight words are the ones that cannot be sounded out, so sounding them out is the wrong tool. Look at the shape of the whole word, say it, cover it, write it — then check the letters against the original rather than the sound.

Count a word as learned when it has been spelled correctly on three separate days. That is the rule SpellChirp uses, and it is roughly where a word stops needing to be looked up.