Sight word bingo

The set on this page

Sight words bingo cards, 4 by 4, 16 cards, 4 to a sheet. A four-by-four card has no middle square, so there is no free square and all 16 are filled. Sixteen cards at four to a sheet is 4 sheets, and the file is 5 pages counting the caller’s sheet. The card is 89 by 111.4 mm, a square is 22.25 by 25.59 mm, and the words set at 26.48 pt, the largest type on the site, because sight words are short.

Where the words come from

Thirty-six of the words on Edward Dolch’s 1936 list: the, and, a, to, said, in, he, of, it, was, you, they, she, is, for, at, but, that, with, all, we, can, go, here, look, see, come. The list was published in 1936 and is long out of copyright, which is why it can be named here rather than gestured at.

Thirty-six words filling 16 squares gives 7,307,872,110 different cards, a larger number than any of the five-by-five sets, because choosing 16 from 36 has more ways to it than choosing 24 from 36.

Why sixteen squares rather than twenty-five

A four-by-four card finishes in about half the time, which matters when the players are five. It also means a line is four rather than five, so somebody gets a line early enough to keep the room interested. Turn the free square on by going to three by three or five by five; a four-by-four has no middle to make free.

The file

39,767 bytes over 5 pages. The caller’s sheet at the back carries all 36 words. Black only; PDF, PNG and SVG.