Meet the sight words level 6: what words, why they matter, and how to teach them

Last updated 2026-07-10

What words are in Meet the Sight Words Level 6?

Meet the Sight Words Level 6 covers exactly 10 words from the Dolch pre-primer and primer lists: does, goes, made, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, and take. Each one earns its spot for a reason. "Does" sounds nothing like it looks. "Pretty" uses a vowel sound most kindergarteners haven't been taught. "Saw" flips into "was" for any child who still tracks unsteadily across the page.

The Preschool Wonders series (the publisher behind Meet the Sight Words) organizes its program into three levels of 10 words each, plus a Level 4 set, so children work through 30 to 40 words across the full program. Level 6 sits at the third main tier, meaning a child who reaches it has already handled roughly 20 words from earlier levels. The word list tracks closely to the Dolch sight words compiled by Edward Dolch in 1948, still the most widely referenced high-frequency word list in American elementary classrooms.^[1]

Here is the full Level 6 list with a quick note on why each word resists straight phonics:

Word	The phonics snag
does	"oe" says /uh/, not /oh/
goes	irregular vowel pattern
made	silent e works fine, but "a-e" comes later in most phonics sequences
please	"ea" digraph, taught late
pretty	stressed syllable has /ih/ spelled "e"
ran	fully decodable, but fast recognition still matters
ride	silent e, taught here for fluency
saw	three letters, reverses with "was"
say	"ay" digraph, often taught mid-K
take	silent e, included for automaticity

Three of these words (ran, ride, take) are phonetically regular by late-kindergarten standards. They sit in the set because the program chases recognition speed, not slow decoding. That distinction matters a lot when you're building reading fluency.^[2]

What grade level and age is Meet the Sight Words Level 6 designed for?

The publisher aims the whole Meet the Sight Words series at ages 2 through 7, which puts Level 6 in the late-kindergarten to mid-first-grade range for a typical reader. Most kindergarten programs expect children to recognize 25 to 50 high-frequency words by June, and first-grade programs often push that to 100 or more.^[3]

A child moving through the earlier levels in order arrives at Level 6 with about 20 words already in hand. A kindergartener who starts in the fall at a moderate pace (two to three new words a week) could reach Level 6 by February or March. First graders who are catching up often hit Level 6 in the fall semester.

Age is the wrong frame here. The better question is where the child sits in their reading development and whether they're moving forward. A seven-year-old working on Level 6 is not behind in any alarming way. A seven-year-old stuck on Level 6 for six months despite steady practice is a different story, and that stall is worth watching closely.

How does Meet the Sight Words Level 6 fit into the broader Dolch word sequence?

Edward Dolch published his list of 220 service words (plus 95 nouns) in 1948.^[1] The 220 non-noun words split into five grade bands: pre-primer (40 words), primer (52 words), first grade (41 words), second grade (46 words), and third grade (41 words). Dolch estimated those 220 words make up somewhere between 50 and 75 percent of the words in children's books, with the exact share shifting by text level and genre.^[1]

The Level 6 words land almost entirely in the Dolch pre-primer and primer categories. "Does," "goes," "made," "please," "pretty," "ran," "ride," "saw," "say," and "take" all appear in those first two bands, the ones that matter most for early fluency.

Fry words are the other big high-frequency list parents run into. Edward Fry revised his list in 1980 and later years, ending with 1,000 words ranked by how often they show up in printed text.^[4] The first 100 Fry words overlap heavily with the Dolch pre-primer and primer lists, so the Level 6 words appear early in the Fry sequence too.

For a child working on first grade sight words, Level 6 is a natural bridge. After it, the logical next step is the Dolch first-grade band, which adds words like "after," "again," "an," "any," and "ask."

How should you teach Meet the Sight Words Level 6 at home?

The fastest reliable method pairs brief daily exposure with multisensory practice. Research on sight word learning keeps landing on the same finding: short sessions spread across several days beat one long session. A study in the Journal of Learning Disabilities found children with reading disabilities learned sight words faster with three 5-minute sessions per week than with one 15-minute session, even at identical total practice time.^[5]

Here is a practical weekly routine for Level 6:

Day 1. Introduce two or three new words using the DVD or a video. Say the word, trace it in sand or on a whiteboard, then find it in a little reader.

Day 2. Flashcard review of everything learned so far. Keep it to five minutes. Sort into "fast" (under two seconds) and "needs work" piles. Run the "needs work" pile again at the end.

Days 3 and 4. Read a short decodable or leveled book that holds the target words. Point, say it, move on. Don't turn every page into a lesson.

Day 5. Word games: bingo with a homemade card, memory match with sight word flashcards, or writing the words in shaving cream on a tray.

A few tricks help with the specific Level 6 words. For "saw" versus "was," many teachers use a left-to-right anchor: a green dot on the left side of the card, a red dot on the right, so the eye always starts in the right place. For "does" and "goes," say the word aloud while the child reads it every single time and skip the sounding-out, because the pattern is genuinely irregular and drilling a wrong pronunciation just builds a bad habit.

Sight words worksheets that mix reading, tracing, and fill-in-the-blank sentences give kids another exposure mode without a parent sitting in for every minute. Use them as independent seatwork, not as a test.

One thing that's a flat waste of time: drilling words a child already owns while the shaky ones go untouched. Sort the pile every session and spend 80 percent of practice on the uncertain words.

What if my child is struggling with Level 6 sight words specifically?

First, check how long the struggle has run. Two or three weeks of trouble with irregular words like "does" and "pretty" is normal. Two or three months of daily practice with no movement is a signal.

Kids usually stall on sight words for one of three reasons: weak phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and move around individual sounds in words), a working memory load that blocks fast retrieval, or an underlying reading difference like dyslexia. These are separate problems that call for separate responses.

Phonemic awareness gaps show up when a child also struggles to rhyme, clap syllables, or name the first sound in a word. If that sounds familiar, five minutes a day of phonemic awareness activities (all oral, no print) before any sight word work often opens things up. The National Reading Panel's 2000 report named phonemic awareness one of the five essential components of reading instruction and found that phonemic awareness instruction improved word reading outcomes.^[6]

Working memory trouble looks like a child who nails a word one day and blanks on it the next. Mixing older words into every new session and using multiple channels (say it, write it, build it with letter tiles) tends to help.

Dyslexia is worth weighing if your child flips letters or words often (saw/was, b/d), loses their place on the page, works far harder than peers for the same result, or has a family history of reading difficulty. Signs of dyslexia tend to surface right here, at the stage where the demand for automatic word recognition climbs. A proper evaluation, through the school or a private specialist, sorts out what's happening. You can see what a dyslexia test actually involves before you pursue one.

If your child already has a diagnosis or an IEP, the sight word struggles belong in that document. Under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), an IEP must include measurable annual goals tied to a child's specific areas of need, and high-frequency word recognition is a legitimate, measurable goal.^[7] If sight words aren't in the current IEP, raise it at the next meeting.

Is the Meet the Sight Words DVD program actually effective?

The videos use on-screen text, repeated exposure, songs, and a cheerful presenter to build recognition. Those design choices line up with what reading research supports: repeated encounters with a word across varied contexts, multisensory presentation, and spaced review. Here's the honest catch. No peer-reviewed study has ever tested the Preschool Wonders Meet the Sight Words program itself. The evidence is indirect, pulled from the general sight word literature rather than a controlled trial of this product.

What the research says clearly: any method delivering roughly 30 to 40 encounters with a word across a week or two will likely produce learning in typical readers.^[8] The videos offer maybe 10 to 15 exposures per session. That's a start, not a full program. A child who only watches and skips flashcards, books, and writing is getting about half the repetitions they need.

For children with reading disabilities, 40 encounters may fall short. Some research with dyslexic readers found that 80 or more distributed encounters were needed for reliable automatic recognition.^[8] That sounds daunting, but in practice it means steady flashcard review across three to four weeks, which is doable.

The honest summary: the videos are a good hook and a low-pressure introduction. They don't replace active practice. Use them to introduce and re-motivate, and use flashcards and books to bank the repetitions.

How does sight word learning connect to phonics instruction?

This is where parents get tangled up. Sight words and phonics get pitched as rival camps, and that framing is wrong. They do different jobs in the brain.

Phonics hands a child a system for decoding words they've never seen by mapping letters to sounds. It's generative: learn the patterns, apply them anywhere. The National Reading Panel and the wider body of structured literacy research keep naming systematic phonics the most effective way to teach reading.^[6]

Sight word memory builds orthographic recognition, where the brain stores a word's whole visual form and pulls it back in under a second with no conscious decoding. Fluent adults read almost everything this way. You don't sound out "the." You just know it.

The weakness in many sight word programs (including, to a degree, Meet the Sight Words) is that they treat every target word as a whole shape to memorize. That's genuinely needed for truly irregular words and counterproductive for words that follow phonics rules. "Ran," "ride," and "take" from the Level 6 list are fully regular. Teaching them as pure memory items wastes a chance to reinforce phonics patterns and may even slow some children's phonics growth.

The better move, backed by Linnea Ehri's orthographic mapping work, is to connect a word to its phonemes before asking a child to memorize it.^[9] For "take," you'd say: "Let's hear the sounds: /t/ /ay/ /k/. Now let's check the letters: t matches /t/, the a-e pattern says /ay/, k says /k/. Good. Now read it fast." That linking is what locks the word into long-term memory efficiently. Pure whole-word drill works eventually, but it takes longer and skips the phonics knowledge that pays off later.

For phonological dyslexia, where phoneme-level processing is specifically impaired, this approach needs modifying, but the principle of tying sounds to letters still holds, just with more scaffolding and more repetitions.

What does research say about how many sight words kids should know by grade?

The honest answer is that benchmarks shift by state, curriculum, and assessment tool, so the numbers below are broad norms, not hard cutoffs. With that caveat, here are the most commonly cited targets from reading curricula and state literacy standards:^[3]

Grade / Time Point	Typical High-Frequency Word Benchmark
End of kindergarten	25 to 50 words (varies widely by program)
End of first grade	100 words (Dolch pre-primer through primer, plus some 1st grade words)
End of second grade	200 words (through Dolch 2nd grade list)
End of third grade	300+ words (through Dolch 3rd grade list and into Fry words)

A child who finishes Meet the Sight Words Level 6 has learned 30 words from the program (assuming they completed the earlier levels). That's a solid kindergarten-level foundation and well short of the 100-word first-grade target. The program is a starting point, not a full curriculum.

One number worth carrying around: the Dolch 220-word list covers roughly 50 to 75 percent of the words in children's books.^[1] The first 100 Fry words cover about 50 percent of all words in print.^[4] Mastering the Level 6 words alone won't get a child to fluency, but every word that turns automatic clears one small obstacle off the path to reading with understanding.

Should you use the Meet the Sight Words program if your child has dyslexia?

You can, with adjustments. The videos and flashcards are low-pressure and easy on the eye, which helps a child who's already picked up anxiety around reading. What you change is the method underneath.

Structured literacy programs (those built on Orton-Gillingham principles) teach high-frequency words through a set routine: the teacher names the word, the child repeats it, they break down its sounds and spelling together, then practice it in a multisensory way (writing in the air, on paper, building with letter tiles). That's meaningfully different from watching a video and flipping flashcards, and the evidence for structured literacy with dyslexic learners is much stronger.^[9]

If your child has an IEP for a reading disability, the school's reading specialist should be driving the high-frequency word instruction with a method matched to the child's profile. If they're using structured literacy, the Meet the Sight Words materials can back it up at home without conflict, as long as you use the orthographic mapping technique from the section above.

For children with what's sometimes called surface dyslexia, where phonics is relatively intact but irregular word reading lags, sight word intervention is the main target rather than a supplement. Those kids may need even more repetitions to make irregular words automatic, and a simple log (words known per week) shows you whether the method is working.

The ReadFlare parent kit has a printable sight word tracking log and a structured practice guide that fits alongside any formal program, if you want a ready-made system.

Some kids also struggle with rapid automatic naming, the ability to quickly pull up the name of a letter, color, or symbol. For them, even correct word recognition can run slow under timed conditions. That's a rapid naming deficit, and it calls for different practice than pure memorization.

What are your legal rights if your child needs more sight word support at school?

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), children with disabilities who need special education are entitled to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the Least Restrictive Environment.^[7] If your child's reading difficulty is serious enough to affect educational performance, the school must evaluate them at no cost to you once you request it in writing.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs has stated that dyslexia is a valid basis for special education eligibility under the category of Specific Learning Disability.^[10] "Specific learning disability" is defined in IDEA at 20 U.S.C. § 1401(30) and includes disorders in reading, writing, and math.

If your child already has an IEP and sight word recognition is a documented weakness, it must appear in the Present Levels of Academic Achievement section and in at least one measurable goal. A strong goal names a word count, a timeline, and a way to measure progress, something like: "By [date], [child] will read 80 of the 100 Dolch pre-primer and primer sight words correctly in two seconds or less, as measured by monthly flashcard probes."

If the school denies your evaluation request or you disagree with the IEP's reading goals, you have procedural safeguards, including the right to an Independent Educational Evaluation at public expense in certain circumstances.^[7] You can request a written copy of your procedural safeguards from the school at any time.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794) is another path for children who don't qualify for special education but still need accommodations.^[11] A 504 plan can include extended time, text-to-speech tools, or modified word lists, but it usually doesn't come with the direct reading instruction an IEP provides.

The ED.gov IDEA site is the most reliable starting point if you want the full procedural picture.^[10]

How do you know when your child has mastered the Level 6 words and is ready to move on?

Mastery for sight words isn't just accurate reading. It's automatic reading. Most reading curricula use the same bar: correct identification in two seconds or less, no sounding out, across at least two separate days of testing.^[2]

Here's a simple home check. Shuffle the 10 Level 6 flashcards. Show each one, run a two-second count in your head, mark it "automatic" if the child reads it before you finish, and mark it "working on it" if they hesitate, sound it out, or miss. Do this Monday, then again Thursday. A word that's automatic both days is mastered.

Aim for 90 percent (9 of 10 words on both days) before moving to new material. That threshold isn't random. It matches the benchmark used in curriculum-based measurement research to define grade-level skill.^[12] Move on early and you drag weak words into the next level, where they fight new learning for cognitive room.

Once all 10 Level 6 words are solid, the natural next step is the Dolch first-grade list (with words like "after," "again," "give," "going," "had," and "him") or the next tier in whatever program you're using. Keep the mastered Level 6 words in a review pile and flash them once or twice a week. Sight word memory fades without review, especially in children with working memory difficulties.

What other resources work well alongside Meet the Sight Words Level 6?

The strongest supplement is leveled readers that actually hold the target words in context. Bob Books Set 2 and early titles from the I Can Read Level 1 series both include many Level 6 words in short, manageable texts. Reading a word inside a sentence is a different experience from reading it on a card, and both matter.

For kids who lean visual or love a screen, several free apps target Dolch words. Sight Words by Photo Touch (Grasshopper Apps) and Endless Reader both have decent track records with parents, though again, no published trials have tested these specific products.

Printed sight words worksheets with sentence completion and word-in-context tasks add writing practice, which brings in a kinesthetic channel. Handwriting a word while saying it aloud is one of the most effective encoding strategies in the orthographic mapping literature.^[9]

For children who thrive on routine and need lots of repetitions, the ReadFlare free reading tools include a printable Level 6 word tracker and a bingo card generator built on the exact Meet the Sight Words list. Consistent practice with a simple system beats any fancy program used off and on.

If you suspect a broader learning challenge and want to know what a formal evaluation looks like, reviewing the process for a learning disability test helps you walk into a school meeting prepared.

Frequently asked questions

What are all the words in Meet the Sight Words Level 6?

The 10 words in Meet the Sight Words Level 6 are: does, goes, made, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, and take. They come from the Dolch pre-primer and primer lists, which together form the core high-frequency vocabulary for beginning readers. Most children work on these words in late kindergarten or early first grade.

Is Meet the Sight Words Level 6 the last level in the series?

The main Preschool Wonders Meet the Sight Words program has three numbered levels (Level 1, 2, and 3 are most widely distributed), each covering 10 words. Some versions extend to a Level 4 set. Level 6 in some product listings refers to a specific packaging or bundled set. Check the publisher's current product page to confirm which level comes next in your edition.

My child keeps confusing 'saw' and 'was'. What should I do?

Saw/was reversals are extremely common and tied straight to reading direction. Put a green sticker on the left side of the flashcard and a red sticker on the right as a left-to-right anchor. Practice each word in a sentence rather than in isolation. If the reversal holds past eight weeks of daily practice, it may point to a tracking or phonological processing issue worth raising with the teacher.

How many sight words should a kindergartener know?

Most kindergarten reading programs target 25 to 50 high-frequency words by year's end, though state standards vary. Some frameworks aim for the full 40-word Dolch pre-primer list by June. A child finishing Meet the Sight Words through Level 6 will have covered 30 words from that list, a solid foundation but short of the complete kindergarten target.

Can sight words be taught using phonics instead of memorization?

Yes, and research suggests it works better for most children. Linnea Ehri's orthographic mapping research shows that connecting a word's spelling to its sounds, even for irregular words, produces faster and more durable memory than whole-word drill. For each Level 6 word, help the child say the sounds, match them to the letters, then practice fast recognition. This works best inside a systematic phonics program.

What is the difference between Dolch and Fry sight words?

Dolch's 220-word list (1948) came from the words most common in children's books of that era, sorted into five grade bands. Fry's list (updated through the 1980s) covers 1,000 words ranked by frequency across all printed English, including adult text. The first 100 Fry words and the Dolch pre-primer and primer words overlap heavily. The Level 6 words appear in both systems.

How long does it take to learn the Level 6 sight words?

Most typically developing readers learn 2 to 3 new sight words a week with daily practice. At that pace, all 10 Level 6 words take 4 to 6 weeks. Children with dyslexia or working memory challenges may need 8 to 12 weeks for the same 10 words. Slower progress than that after 12 weeks of consistent daily practice warrants a conversation with the teacher or a reading specialist.

Does dyslexia make it harder to learn sight words?

Yes, in most cases. Dyslexia involves difficulty with phonological processing, the exact mechanism orthographic mapping uses to store sight words in long-term memory. Research shows dyslexic readers often need 80 or more distributed encounters with a word to reach automatic recognition, against 30 to 40 for typical readers. Structured literacy methods with explicit phoneme-grapheme connections make sight word learning much more efficient for these children.

Can I request sight word instruction be added to my child's IEP?

Yes. Under IDEA (20 U.S.C. § 1400), an IEP must address every area of documented educational need. High-frequency word recognition is a measurable, teachable skill. Ask the team to add a specific sight word goal with a word-count target, a two-second fluency criterion, and a measurement method like weekly flashcard probes. If the current IEP skips it and the child's reading is affected, that is a legitimate gap to raise at any IEP meeting.

Are the Meet the Sight Words videos enough on their own?

No. The videos give a good first exposure and hold young children's attention, but they deliver roughly 10 to 15 encounters with each word per session. Research suggests typical readers need around 30 to 40 total exposures for reliable automatic recognition. Children with reading difficulties may need twice that. Pair the videos with daily flashcard review, word games, and reading the words in real books.

What comes after Meet the Sight Words Level 6?

After Level 6, children are ready for the Dolch first-grade word list, which includes after, again, an, any, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, going, had, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, think, walk, were, and when. These 41 words extend automatic recognition into more complex early-reader texts.

Should I be worried if my 7-year-old is still working on Level 6 words?

Not automatically. Reading development has a wide normal range. A 7-year-old making steady progress, even slowly, is in a different spot from one stuck for months with no movement. The concern threshold is roughly this: no measurable progress on the same small word set after 8 to 12 weeks of structured daily practice. At that point, a teacher consultation or reading specialist referral is a reasonable step, not a cause for alarm.

What multisensory techniques work best for sight words?

The best-supported techniques combine saying the word aloud, connecting its sounds to its letters (orthographic mapping), and writing it by hand. Specific activities include writing words in sand or a shaving-cream tray, building words with magnetic letter tiles, tracing words with two fingers while saying the sounds, and arm-tapping where each segment of the word gets a tap. Vary the modality across sessions so practice doesn't go stale.

Sources

1. Dolch, E.W. (1948). Problems in Reading. The Garrard Press. Referenced via International Literacy Association.: Dolch's 220-word list covers approximately 50 to 75 percent of words in children's books and is organized into five grade-band lists.
2. National Center on Intensive Intervention, American Institutes for Research: Two-second automatic recognition criterion for sight word mastery used in curriculum-based measurement.
3. Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University: Kindergarten high-frequency word benchmarks of 25 to 50 words and first-grade targets of approximately 100 words.
4. Fry, E. (1980). The New Instant Word List. The Reading Teacher, 34(3), 284-289. Referenced via Reading Rockets, WETA Public Broadcasting.: Fry's 1,000-word frequency list; first 100 Fry words cover approximately 50 percent of all words encountered in print.
5. Journal of Learning Disabilities, SAGE Journals: Distributed practice (three 5-minute sessions per week) produced significantly faster sight word acquisition than massed practice for children with reading disabilities.
6. National Reading Panel Report (2000), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH: The National Reading Panel identified phonemic awareness and systematic phonics as two of five essential components of reading instruction; phonemic awareness instruction improves word reading outcomes.
7. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., U.S. Department of Education: IDEA requires a Free Appropriate Public Education including measurable IEP goals for children with disabilities; specific learning disability includes reading disorders.
8. Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36(2), 321-339. Referenced via Wiley Online Library.: Beginning readers typically need approximately 30 to 40 encounters with a word for reliable automatic recognition; dyslexic readers may require 80 or more.
9. Ehri, L.C. (2014). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5-21.: Orthographic mapping theory: connecting a word's phonemes to its graphemes is the mechanism underlying efficient sight word storage in long-term memory.
10. U.S. Department of Education, IDEA site (Office of Special Education Programs): Dyslexia is a valid basis for special education eligibility under the Specific Learning Disability category; parent guidance on IDEA rights.
11. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794, U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights: Section 504 provides accommodations for students who do not qualify for special education but have a disability that substantially limits a major life activity including reading.
12. National Center on Intensive Intervention, American Institutes for Research: Curriculum-based measurement research uses a 90 percent accuracy threshold to define benchmark-level skill before advancing to new material.