Dolch sight words for 3rd grade
The Dolch third grade list is the last of the five levels: 41 words such as "about", "laugh", "myself" and "together". A child who reads these on sight has the full 220 Dolch service words, which is the usual end point of sight-word instruction.
Free printable PDF, 3rd grade.
One page, black and white, prints the same every time.
What is on the sheet
The table below is the sheet as it prints with these options: Third grade, Yes.
Third grade 41 words
| about | far | light | six |
| better | full | long | small |
| bring | got | much | start |
| carry | grow | myself | ten |
| clean | hold | never | today |
| cut | hot | only | together |
| done | hurt | own | try |
| draw | if | pick | warm |
| drink | keep | seven | |
| eight | kind | shall | |
| fall | laugh | show |
The end of the list
By 3rd grade most children read the earlier levels without effort, and this list is a short year's work or a single check. The words are ordinary but not always regular: "laugh" and "eight" cannot be sounded out, and "shall" and "upon" are rarer in modern books than they were in 1936. The point of finishing the list is fluency: a reader who does not stop at any of the 220 service words reads sentences instead of words.
Choose "All 220 words" for the complete Dolch list on one page in five columns, without checkboxes, which is the version teachers keep for an end-of-year assessment.
After the Dolch list
The Fry list continues where Dolch stops: its first three hundreds cover most of the Dolch words and go on to 300, and the later hundreds carry a reader through 5th grade. For spelling, the 3rd grade spelling list on this site is the next reference.
Common questions
- Does the 220 include the nouns?
- No. Dolch published 95 nouns as a separate list; the 220 service words on this page are the ones every programme means by "the Dolch list".
- Why is "shall" on the list?
- It was common in 1936 children's books. It stays on the list because the list is a fixed, published set; teachers can skip it.