Sight words
Dolch Nouns
The 97 Dolch nouns, from apple and baby to window and wood, with hangman, difficulty scores and a printable worksheet and answer key.
Read the word list
Edward Dolch kept nouns out of his 220 service words and compiled them as a separate list. The version we use has 97 entries: ordinary things a young reader meets in early books, like ball, bed, cat, dog, house, milk, tree and water. Plurals such as children, feet, men and women are on it too.
The list is a window on the books it came from. It has farm animals (chicken, cow, goat, horse, sheep), a robin, kitty, Santa Claus, Christmas and a birthday, but nothing like a phone, a computer or a bus. That is the main limit to know about before you use it: it was built from children's books of the 1930s and 1940s.
Because nouns are things you can picture, they are easy to teach with objects and drawings. They are also easy to spell by sound, which makes them lighter work in hangman than the service-word lists.
97 entries. Our solver needed 5.1 wrong guesses on average: 14 easy, 28 medium and 55 hard. The toughest is baby (11 misses), the quickest father (0).
- apple Medium · 3
- baby Hard · 11
- back Hard · 9
- ball Hard · 10
- bear Hard · 10
- bed Hard · 9
- bell Hard · 10
- bird Hard · 8
- birthday Easy · 1
- boat Hard · 8
- box Hard · 11
- boy Hard · 10
- bread Medium · 2
- brother Medium · 3
- cake Hard · 10
- car Hard · 7
- cat Hard · 7
- chair Medium · 3
- chicken Medium · 3
- children Easy · 1
- Christmas Easy · 1
- coat Hard · 5
- corn Hard · 5
- cow Hard · 10
- day Hard · 10
- dog Hard · 10
- doll Hard · 6
- door Hard · 5
- duck Hard · 9
- egg Hard · 9
- eye Medium · 3
- farm Hard · 5
- farmer Medium · 4
- father Easy · 0
- feet Hard · 6
- fire Hard · 6
- fish Hard · 5
- floor Medium · 3
- flower Medium · 2
- game Hard · 7
- garden Easy · 1
- girl Hard · 5
- goat Hard · 7
- grass Easy · 1
- ground Medium · 4
- hand Hard · 5
- head Medium · 3
- hill Hard · 6
- home Hard · 7
- horse Medium · 2
- house Medium · 4
- kitty Hard · 6
- leg Hard · 7
- letter Easy · 0
- man Medium · 4
- men Hard · 7
- milk Hard · 7
- money Hard · 6
- morning Medium · 3
- mother Medium · 2
- name Medium · 2
- nest Easy · 1
- night Hard · 5
- paper Hard · 5
- party Hard · 5
- picture Medium · 2
- pig Hard · 10
- rabbit Medium · 3
- rain Medium · 2
- ring Hard · 5
- robin Hard · 8
- Santa Claus Easy · 1
- school Medium · 3
- seed Medium · 2
- sheep Easy · 1
- shoe Medium · 2
- sister Medium · 3
- snow Hard · 5
- song Medium · 4
- squirrel Easy · 0
- stick Hard · 5
- street Easy · 1
- sun Hard · 6
- table Easy · 0
- thing Hard · 6
- time Hard · 5
- top Hard · 7
- toy Hard · 9
- tree Easy · 1
- watch Hard · 6
- water Hard · 5
- way Hard · 11
- wind Hard · 10
- window Medium · 2
- woman Medium · 3
- women Medium · 4
- wood Hard · 10
Words worth a closer look
- kittyAn old-fashioned word for a cat; the double t is the spelling point.
- childrenPlural of child, with an irregular ending.
- feetPlural of foot: the oo turns into ee.
- Santa ClausTwo words, and a name rather than a common noun.
Teaching it
Do not teach all 97 together. Pick a theme for the week: animals one day, home the next, food after that. Draw or point to each word first, then play. Matching a word to a picture is how nouns stick.
A few entries need extra attention. Kitty, robin and Santa Claus may be unfamiliar to students from other regions, and Santa Claus is two words in the game. Watch is both a noun and a verb, and time, way and thing are abstract and quite hard to picture, so teach them in sentences.
Print a Dolch Nouns worksheet
Eight puzzles on one US Letter page, with a clue, letter blanks, an empty frame to draw in, an alphabet strip to cross off and circles to count misses. Page two is the answer key.
Need another sheet?
Draw eight different words from this list, right here. Same layout, new answer key.
Keep going
- Dolch Sight WordsThe Dolch service words from pre-primer to third grade, with the history behind the list, a difficulty score for each word and hangman to practice.
- Pre-Primer Sight WordsThe 40 Dolch pre-primer words, the first level of the list, with hangman, difficulty scores and a printable worksheet and answer key.
- Primer Sight WordsAll 52 Dolch primer words, from all and am to who and yes, with hangman, per-word difficulty and a printable worksheet.
- First Grade Sight WordsThe 41 Dolch first-grade words, from after and again to walk and when, with hangman, difficulty scores and a worksheet.
- Second Grade Sight WordsThe 47 Dolch second-grade words, including because, their, would and don't, with hangman, difficulty scores and a printable.
- Third Grade Sight WordsThe 41 Dolch third-grade words, such as laugh, light, together and myself, with hangman, difficulty scores and a printable worksheet.