Dolch Pre-Primer Sight Words Set 2

Many of these words are only two or three letters long, which makes them feel easy. But the shortest words are the ones a child reads most — and reading them instantly, without hesitation, is what early fluency is built on.

This is the second set of Dolch Pre-Primer sight words, for pre-K and kindergarten readers. It gathers a cluster of tiny but essential words — IN, IS, IT, ME, MY — alongside action and describing words like JUMP, LOOK and LITTLE. These appear constantly in beginner books and decodable readers alike, so quick recognition pays off immediately. The word search gives young readers another friendly encounter with each one.

I · IN · IS · IT · JUMP · LITTLE · LOOK · MAKE · ME · MY · NOT · ONE · PLAY

Small words, big workload

The little words in this set do an enormous amount of work. IN, IS, IT, ME and MY have just two letters each, yet a young reader meets them dozens of times in a single short book. Because they’re so frequent, the payoff for instant recognition is huge: every time a child reads IS without pausing, they free up attention for the harder words in the sentence. These are the words to practice gently and often, because fluency with them quietly speeds up everything else.

A few words here reward a closer look. ONE is genuinely odd — it starts with a “w” sound but has no W, so it must be learned by sight. MAKE has a silent E that makes the A say its name, an early taste of the magic-E pattern children will meet again and again. LITTLE has a double T and an LE ending, a slightly trickier shape than its neighbors. And LOOK has a double O making the “oo” sound — two o’s like two eyes, which children rarely forget once they’ve noticed.

Five to point out as they search

1. ONE can’t be sounded out. Ask your child to say “wun” slowly while looking at O-N-E. Where’s the W? The mystery is the memory hook — words that surprise us stick.
2. MAKE has a magic E. Cover the E and ask your child to read what’s left (“mak”). Then uncover it and read again. Watching the E change the A’s sound is the whole magic-E lesson in five seconds.
3. LITTLE has a double T. Have your child clap the word in two beats — LIT-TLE — and notice the T’s sitting where the beats meet. Doubled letters often live at the join.
4. LOOK has two eyes. Ask your child to draw pupils in the two o’s after they circle it. Silly, memorable, and they will never misspell LOOK again.
5. MY uses Y as a vowel. Ask: “can you hear an I in MY? Can you see one?” The Y is doing the I’s job — the same trick they’ll spot later in CRY, FLY and SKY.

Three ways to make it stick

As a flash-then-find game. Hold up each word on a flashcard for two seconds, class says it aloud, then everyone hunts for that word in the grid before you flash the next. Pacing the search word by word keeps the whole class together and gives every word its moment of full attention.

As a sentence-speaking pair task. After the grid is done, pairs take turns picking a found word and putting it into a spoken sentence: “I can jump,” “look at my dog,” “it is little.” Speaking the words in real sentences is the bridge between recognizing a word and actually using it.

One-to-one at home. For homeschool families, play the silly sentence game: each time your child circles a word, you build a spoken sentence together that uses it — the sillier the better. “My fish can jump!” “Look, one little sock!” Laughter is glue for memory, and the game costs nothing. Like A in the first set, the word I is a single letter and works better spotted in tonight’s storybook than hunted in the grid.

What comes next

• Dolch Pre-Primer Sight Words Set 3 — the last Pre-Primer group, with RED, RUN, SAID, SEE and more
• Dolch Pre-Primer Sight Words Set 1 — the first set, with AND, BIG, COME and HERE
• All spelling word searches — the full collection across phonics, sight words and statutory lists

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