From A To The: Comparing Young Children’s Spoken Vocabulary To Sight Word Lists

High frequency sight words (HFSW) are words that occur frequently in printed text. Reading instruction in the early elementary grades includes HFSWs as a cornerstone for instruction and assessment of beginning reading skills. Language comprehension and word recognition are two abilities that are needed before skilled reading can take place; therefore, HFSW lists should reflect children’s listening and speaking vocabularies. This study examined whether there were parallels between Dolch and Fry’s HFSW lists and the oral vocabularies of five- to six-year-old children. Overall, results showed that over half of the words from Dolch and Fry’s HFSW list occurred in children’s conversational language samples. Furthermore, when each list was sorted by parts of speech, a similar number of words appeared in each category. These findings are further discussed in terms of clinical and research implications.