There
is a small collection of words that make up a majority of the English
language. Many reading tutors feel that once children have mastered these words
they can read something like 75% of the words in any text.
These words are call sight words because they need to be committed to sight
recognition i.e. 'See it Say it'. There are many sight word list around such as
the Dolch List or the Holderway List, but you can make up your own by just
looking at what words appear often in children's books often.