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https://www.readandspell.com/us/blog/what-are-dolch-words

I was in Kindergarten in 1960, IIRC. We got Phonics and Dolch list words. My very short teaching career in the mid 2000’s had me teaching special education students to read, and do arithmetic and a bit of algebra. The Dolch word were (and still are) words that occur very frequently in reading. They’re also called “sight words” because they need to be recognized on sight to help with the reader comprehending what they’re reading. Phonics is great, and necessary, but sounding out basic common words makes it more difficult to read.

One of my students, a 5th grader, introduced himself to me with “Hi! I’m MR and I can’t read.” I told him that having mental retardation didn’t mean he could not read, though it could make it more difficult. I tested him, using the Brigance diagnostic book, and found that he was right. He couldn’t read. He recognized two of the Dolch list words, “a” and “I.” I told him about the janitor at the high school I worked at a few years before. He had been in the school’s Trainable MR program about 20 years before I met him. On his breaks, he was reading Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard. It is a MASSIVE book even in paperback. I told the kid if this guy could learn to read, he could learn to read. We worked on the Dolch list, and phonics. Intensively! When his mom and I did his IEP, I told him that by the end of the year, he would be able to read, or one of us was going to die, and it wasn’t me. And his mom is sitting there nodding her head “Yes!” At the end of the year, I retested him with the same Brigance diagnostic, and he tested early 1st Grade. Last thing he said to me was “See, I told you I could read!” He could read most of the first year Dolch words, and sound out longer words that he didn’t recognize by sight.