Words TowerThe Dolch Third Grade list41 words
Tap a word to hear it. The voices are AI-generated recordings that ship with the game — nothing is sent anywhere when you play them.
Dolch Third Grade — 41 words. Printed from https://vocabularygames.org/sight-word-games/dolch-third-grade/
About this list
After this list the Dolch words are done, and reading practice moves on to the words of whatever a child is reading. What is left here are the stubborn ones — «laugh», «eight», «myself» — and a group of short verbs that turn up in every story: bring, carry, hold, keep, pick, start.
Every word is recorded. Children at this level often read the word correctly and still spell it wrong, so it is worth asking for both.
What trips children up here
- «laugh» is spelt like nothing it sounds like — the one word on this list almost every child asks about.
- «eight» and «seven» sit next to each other here; the first is irregular, the second is not.
- «myself» and «own» are about belonging, and are easier taught in a sentence than alone.
- «done» and «draw» begin alike but behave quite differently.
- «together» is long enough to be read in pieces: to-geth-er.
How to work through it
Ask for the word in writing more often than in reading; at this level the reading is usually the easier half.
Use the long words as spelling words of the week and leave the short verbs for reading aloud.
When the list is finished, keep the words in rotation for a month. Finished is not the same as kept.
The same list, as a game
In Words Tower the word is said aloud and your child walks into the door that carries it, on a tower that turns as they climb. Choose 🔤 Learn to read → Dolch Third Grade when you pick the words, and the tower is built from this list. A word that was missed comes back sooner; a word that is known comes back rarely. There are no ads, no sign-up and no timers, and progress stays in the browser on your own device.
Play the Dolch Third Grade list
Questions
What comes after the Dolch lists?
The Fry lists, which go by frequency rather than by grade, and your school’s own vocabulary and spelling lists. The first 300 Fry words are built into the game as three sets of 100.
Are the Dolch lists still used?
Yes. They were drawn up in 1936, and because the commonest words in English have barely changed, schools still use them. The Fry lists are the more recent equivalent.
My child knows these but reads slowly. What now?
Speed comes from reading, not from lists. Keep the practice to a few minutes and spend the rest of the time on books that are slightly too easy — fluency is built on comfort.
Do we have to pay for anything?
No. The lists, the recordings and the game are free, there are no ads and no sign-up, and progress stays in the browser on your own device.
Can I print this list?
Yes. Print the page and you get the list on paper, without the buttons and without the rest of the site — one sheet to put on the fridge or hand out in class.
The other lists
Before this: Dolch Second Grade. Next: Dolch nouns. All of them on the sight word games page.