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Sight Word Checklist

Fry’s first 100 high-frequency words, with three passes for progress.

Free. No account, no email, nothing to install.Families and teachers · K–2

Page one of a four-page sight word checklist, with space for a child’s name and three pass dates, then a numbered list of the first twenty-five Fry high-frequency words, each with three columns of K, S and N boxes to mark whether the child knew it, sounded it out, or not yet.
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4 pages · US Letter · prints in black and white

No email address, no account. Print as many as you need, including for a whole class.

For schools and PTOs

Put your school's name on it

Type a school name and it appears on the sheet. Print a class set or a school set — there is nothing to buy and nothing to attribute.

 

The name you type stays in this browser. It is not sent to us, not saved, and not recorded anywhere — closing the tab is enough to remove it. In the print dialog, choose Save as PDF to keep a copy.

What the sheet asks

  • Child’s name
  • Date — pass 1, pass 2 and pass 3
  • Word
  • K — knew it straight away
  • S — sounded it out
  • N — not yet

How to use it

  1. Print all four pages and keep them together.
  2. Show each word and mark K, S or N after the child reads or tries it.
  3. Come back in a fortnight and fill the next pass in a different colour.

Early in the year, and then again every few weeks — the point of the three passes is that one sheet shows movement over a term rather than a single snapshot. Sit beside the child, show one word at a time, and mark one box after they read or try it. Use a different colour for each pass and the progress is visible without reading a number. Twenty-five words a page is about as much as a five-year-old will do in one sitting, so treat a page as a session.

Questions people ask

Which hundred words are these?
Fry’s first 100, in frequency order — a widely used high-frequency word list. The earliest words are the most common in the source list. Fry is named on the sheet so a teacher using Dolch or another list knows before printing.
Why three passes instead of one tick?
Because a word known in October and forgotten in January is the thing worth catching, and a single tick cannot show it. Three columns turn the same sheet into a record of what is sticking and what is not.
May I photocopy this for my whole class?
Yes. Print, copy and hand out as many as you need, for a class, a year group or a whole school. There is no licence to buy and nothing to attribute.
What is the difference between K, S and N?
K is knew it straight away, with no pause. S is sounded it out, which is real progress and not the same as knowing it by sight. N is not yet. The three apart tell you what to practise; a single tick would not.

The thinking behind it

Fry's First 100 Sight Words: Printable Checklist and Three-Pass Assessment

A sight-word checklist should show more than a permanent tick. This one separates words known automatically, words decoded successfully, and words that need teaching, then records three passes.

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