Reexamining the Dolch Basic Sight Word List: Contemporary Considerations for Culturally Sustaining Approaches to Assess Sight Word Development

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Dolch Basic Sight Word (DBSW) list has been considered the gold standard tool in schools to determine young readers’ sight word automaticity. It has not changed despite shifts in our lexical and language practices. Assessment tools need to be reexamined for culturally sustaining pedagogical approaches. This study examines how a high-frequency word list constructed from contemporary texts compares to the DBSW list. The study utilized a quantitative corpus linguistic design to construct a new contemporary high-frequency word (CHFW) list using popular American adult texts. Data analysis compared the CHFW list with the original DBSW list using Spearman’s rho for ranked correlation. Texts by authors of color (AoC) were also identified to compare how highly frequent words differed between the CHFW and DBSW lists. Results found correlation between the CHFW and DBSW lists ( ρ = .826) and suggests shifts in lexical and language practices within contemporary written texts. Examining an AoC text, correlation was evident between the DBSW list ( ρ = .800) and CHFW list ( ρ = .790) but displayed less correlation. Findings suggest that using DBSW to assess students’ sight word recognition is an inaccurate reflection of today’s contemporary texts and particularly those texts written by diverse authors.