Friday, September 24, 2010

QuikTap Words - Sight Vocabulary app in development

Did you know that there is a list of sight vocabulary words first developed by Dr. Edwin William Dolch.  Our new app QuikTap Words will teach Dolch Words in a fun way.

Following is from the Wikipedia page, "Dolch Word List":

"The Dolch Word List is a list of frequently used words compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD. The list was prepared in 1936. The list was originally published in his book Problems in Reading in 1948. Under the copyright laws in effect during the time of publication, the Dolch word list is out of copyright.

"Dolch compiled the list based on children's books of his era. The list contains 220 "service words" that have to be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency in English. The compilation excludes nouns, which comprise a separate 95-word list.

"Many of the 220 Dolch words can’t be “sounded out” using common sound-to-letter implicit phonics patterns and have to be learned by sight; hence the alternative term, “sight word." Although the list is divided into grades, for native English speakers, all the words in the Dolch should be mastered by the end of 1st grade.

According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in The Hat" was commissioned to be written using Dolch words:

"Houghton Mifflin asked Theodor Geisel to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. The result of that challenge was "The Cat In The Hat."[citation needed] More recently, the new line of TOON Books, innovative graphic early readers, has been using Dolch words in their comics by top authors and cartoonists, and three of the TOON Books have received the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award from the ALA, given to "the most distinguished American book for beginning readers ..."

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