What are Dolch words?

Dolch words are a set of 220 sight words that are frequently used in the English language and grouped by grade level (40 pre-primer, 52 primer, 41 first grade, 46 second grade, and 41 third grade). There is an additional list of 95 Dolch words that are nouns. Dolch words were identified by Edward William Dolch in 1936. The list was based on children’s books of the 1930s and contains between 50-75% of all of the words used in U.S. library books, school books, magazines, and newspapers. Dolch words are taught to kids as a step to learning to read.