Dolch Third Grade Sight Words
All 41 words on the Dolch third grade list — the last of the five graded levels, and the end of the 220-word core sequence.
The third grade list is the easiest of the five to decode and the hardest to finish, because by this point the remaining words are the ones a child has already failed to pick up incidentally.
Most of these words are phonetically regular: clean, drink, start, small, warm can all be sounded out. The goal here is speed rather than strategy — they should be read without a pause, so attention stays on the meaning of the sentence.
A child who reads and spells all 41 has completed the full 220-word Dolch sequence, which covers roughly 50 to 75 percent of the words in a typical children's book.
The Dolch Third Grade List (41 Words)
Words 1–10
Words 11–20
Words 21–30
Words 31–40
Words 41–41
Practice these words now
A real SpellCrush session on 10 words from the Dolch Third Grade list — each one read aloud with a picture, a definition and a hint. No account, nothing to print.
Start the 10-word session →The 10 words are drawn from 36 of the 41 on this page, so each visit drills a different set.
How to Teach the Dolch Third Grade Words
At this level, drill the gaps rather than the list. Test all 41, mark the ones that hesitate, and work only on those.
- Time the reading. Read the list against a stopwatch, twice a week. Speed is the measure now, and children enjoy beating a number.
- Two minutes a day, not twenty on Sunday. Short daily bursts are what turn a readable word into an automatic one.
- Sort by tricky and easy. Have the child sort the words into two piles themselves. The self-assessment is worth as much as the practice.
- Use them in writing. Ask for a sentence using together, myself and never. Production locks in what recognition leaves loose.
Number words hide here. six, seven, eight, ten are on this list, and eight is the one children misspell for years. Teach it as a shape, not a sound.
Where This List Fits
Before this
Dolch Second Grade
46 words, typically age 7-8.
When these are automatic
Dolch Nouns
95 words, typically age 5-8.
These words are taught alongside the spelling list for 3rd grade, and you can print any of them from the free worksheet generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 41 Dolch third grade sight words?
The Dolch third grade list is: about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm.
Is the third grade list the last Dolch list?
It is the last of the five graded lists, completing the 220 Dolch service words. The 95 Dolch nouns are a separate set that is usually taught across all the earlier grades rather than after this one.
My third grader reads these but misspells them. Is that normal?
Yes. Reading a word and spelling it are different skills, and spelling lags by months. Write-cover-write on the specific words that fail is the fastest way to close the gap.
What should a child learn after finishing all 220 Dolch words?
Move on from sight words to patterns: prefixes and suffixes, homophones, and multi-syllable words. Fry's second and third hundreds also add high-frequency words that Dolch does not cover.
Sight words that actually stick
SpellCrush reads each word aloud, tracks the ones your child misses and brings them back until they are automatic. Free for 7 days.
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