Download and print free sight words word searches: fifteen puzzles that follow sight word practice from preschool through 5th grade, plus puzzles built from the Dolch and Fry lists. Every puzzle is a free PDF with the answer key included, sized for standard printer paper and ready for a reading group, a literacy center or practice at home.
Each grid is built from one grade’s words rather than a mixed list, so you can match the puzzle to the reader. The preschool puzzle uses three-letter words like CAT, DOG and SUN. The kindergarten puzzle moves on to PLEASE, PRETTY and UNDER. By 4th and 5th grade the words are ALTHOUGH, DESPITE, PARTICULAR and SIGNIFICANT, and there are separate puzzles for nouns, verbs and compound words like SOMEWHERE and EVERYTHING.
For more puzzles at the same level, try the 1st grade and 2nd grade word searches, or the easy word searches for early readers.
Sight Words by Grade
The puzzles run in order: preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, then 1st through 5th grade, so a class can move up a puzzle as their reading grows. The Dolch and Fry puzzles take words from the two most widely used sight word lists, and the easy puzzle collects short, common words for readers who are just starting out. A reading puzzle covers the words teachers use to talk about reading itself, like FLUENCY, PHONICS and DECODE.
What’s in Every Puzzle
Each download is a two-page PDF: the puzzle grid on page one, the completed answer key on page two. Fifteen words per grid, hidden in every direction. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to install. Click a card and print the page.
How to Use These Sight Words Word Searches
Finding a word in a grid means reading it letter by letter and then again as a whole, which is the practice sight words need. Use one as a morning warm-up, a literacy center activity or a take-home sheet for the week’s word list. Have younger readers say each word aloud as they circle it, and use the answer key as the week’s spelling list.