Free printable maker
Word Wall Cards and Sight Word Flashcards Maker
Dolch pre-primer to third grade, Fry first 100, or your own list. Big-print cards in a literacy font, 2 to 8 per page, colour-coded by first letter or by list, with A–Z header cards for the wall. Free, no account.
40 words, 7 pages. Duplicates are removed.
getworksheet.co/tools/word-wall-cards-maker
Using the cards
Building a word wall that children actually use
A word wall earns its space when children look at it mid-sentence to check a word they half know. That only happens if the words are big enough to read from a desk, which is why the six-per-page card (3½ × 3 in) is the default here and the two-per-page size exists for large rooms. Lowercase, single-storey letter shapes matter too: the cards are set in Andika, the literacy typeface used by the name tracing generator, so the a, g and y on the wall match the shapes children are taught to write.
Add words slowly. Five new words a week from the current Dolch level, introduced in a lesson and then pinned up, beats a hundred words on day one. Start with the pre-primer list in kindergarten, move to primer when most of it is automatic, and keep removed words in a ring for the children who still need them. Colour by list makes the levels visible on the wall; colour by first letter helps the youngest children find the right column.
Flashcards are the same cards at eight per page. Print two copies for a memory game, or one copy with the letter badge turned on for sorting by initial sound. For a timed read, lay out twenty cards and count how many a child reads in a minute; the sight words worksheets give the written follow-up.
Beyond sight words: type this week's spelling list for a quick-change wall, the vocabulary of a science unit in one colour, or the children's names so the class wall is also the register. A word family wall (-at, -an, -ig) works well at four per page with the family in the title case setting, and pairs with the CVC words worksheets and phonics worksheets.
Printing and cutting: cut guides print as a thin line around each card, so a paper trimmer does a whole sheet in four cuts. Print on 160 gsm card if the wall is up all year, or on paper and laminate. On A4 the cards are a little narrower and the sheet still fits one page. If you would rather have the puzzle version of the same list, the word search maker takes the same words.
The lists here are the standard ones: Dolch's 220 service words split by level (the 95 nouns are not included) and Fry's first hundred, which between them cover roughly half of all the words in children's books. Edit any list before printing; the preset name switches to “My own words” so you know the set is yours.
How it works
How to make word wall cards
Three steps from a word list to a wall of cards.
- 1
Choose the words
A Dolch or Fry list from the menu, or type your own, one per line: spelling words, a topic list, names for the class wall.
- 2
Set the cards
2, 4, 6 or 8 per page, big Andika print, colour by first letter or by list, cut guides, and the A–Z header cards if you are building a wall.
- 3
Print
Letter or A4, on card if you have it. Save as PDF to keep the set for next year.
Good to know
Questions, answered
Yes. Pick a Dolch or Fry list or type your own words, choose the card size and print or save as a PDF. No account, no watermark and no limit on cards. The cards are drawn in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
The five Dolch lists (pre-primer 40 words, primer 52, first grade 41, second grade 46, third grade 41) and the first hundred Fry instant words, in their usual published order. Pick one from the menu and edit the list if you want to remove words you have already taught or add a few of your own; the preset switches to "My own words" when you change it.
Two per page prints cards about 7 × 4½ in for a wall read from across the room; four per page is 3½ × 4½ in; six per page is 3½ × 3 in, the common word wall size; eight per page is 3½ × 2 in, flashcard size for a pocket chart or a ring. The word is sized to fill the card width, so a long word like "together" prints smaller than "the" on the same page.
"By first letter" gives every word beginning with the same letter the same soft background, so children can find the right column of the wall by colour before they can scan the words. "By word list" gives each Dolch or Fry level its own colour, so a wall built up over the year shows which words came from which list. The colours are pale enough to print legibly on a cheap colour printer and to photocopy in black and white.
A word wall is organised alphabetically, so it needs 26 header cards along the top. Tick "Alphabet header cards" to print A to Z at the same size as your words, with both cases ("Aa") so the lowercase form is next to the capital. They take the same colour as the words that start with that letter when colour coding is by first letter.
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