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Email TopicThe earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest assesses a student's ability to recognize up to 50 of the most frequent English words. The earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest is distinct from the earlyReading English - Decodable Words subtest because many high-frequency words are not decodable, and students must recognize them with automaticity rather than by using decoding strategies. The earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest is also available in Braille.
earlyReading English - Sight Word Reading-50 (SW-50)
The primary source that was used to develop this list of sight words comes from the work of Zeno et al. (1995). Although there are many sight word lists in use in schools, the Zeno et al. list is the most recently published. Other lists are much older and do not reflect current word usage. For example, the Dolch list was published in 1948 and the Fry list in 1980.
earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 is part of the Composite in the spring of kindergarten, and it can also be used for progress monitoring. FastBridge also offers another version of this subtest for grade 1 students which includes the first 150 most frequent words from the Zeno et al. (1995) list. Before administering the earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest, be sure to download and print the student forms from the Training & Resources tab in the FastBridge system.
- Select the Training & Resources tab.
- Select Downloads
- Then, select Download resources under earlyReading.
- Finally, click on the PDF icon under the OS column, in the Administrator row.
Sample Student Form
Administer for Screening
- Log in to the FastBridge system as a teacher.
- Select the Screening tab.
- Select the earlyReading assessment.
- Select the SW-50 column
Administer for Progress Monitoring
- Log into the FastBridge system as a teacher or a specialist.
- Select the Progress Monitoring tab.
- Use the filters to find the correct group of students.
- Select Start for the desired student and choose a Form.
Example Teacher View: earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest
Training & Resources
For more information about the earlyReading English -- Sight Words-50 subtest, FastBridge users can complete the earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 certification course found in the Training & Resources section of the FastBridge system.
- Open the Training & Resources tab
- Select the earlyReading English course tile.
- Select the Sight Words-50 (complete lessons 1 through 8 in order to certify in the earlyReading English - Sight Words-50 subtest.)
Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R. T., & Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide (CD-Rom). New York: Touchstone Applied Science Associates.