Trace Press

Make a sight word tracing workbook for Amazon KDP

A sight word tracing book is letter practice first, then words. Trace Press makes both: the 26 A–Z letter pages, then one page for each word you give it. Each word page has the word large with numbered start dots and stroke arrows on every letter, rows of it in dots to trace, and blank lines to write it alone. Below are the two Dolch lists as one-click starting points, and the KDP numbers for the books they make.

The Dolch lists

Edward Dolch's sight word lists were first published in a journal article in 1936 and appeared in his book Problems in Reading in 1948. The two shortest lists are the right size for one book each:

Pre-primer: a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you.

Primer: all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes.

The link only fills in the Practice words box. You can edit the list there: take words out, add your own, or paste a different list. Up to 52 words.

The word lists and dates are from the Wikipedia article "Dolch word list". Check them against your own source before you publish a book built on them.

Why 52 words at most

KDP allows text on a paperback's spine only from 79 pages. 26 letter pages plus 52 word pages is 78, so the cover Trace Press makes, with a blank spine, is right for every book it can make. The spine width still follows the page count:

The extra pages cost nothing to print

For black ink on Amazon.com, KDP charges one flat printing price for any paperback of 24 to 110 pages. So a 66- or 78-page book costs the same to print as the 26-page A–Z book: $2.84 a copy at a large trim (8.5" × 11") and $2.30 at a regular trim (6" × 9"). The royalty at any list price is the same too. At $9.99 it's $3.15 at 8.5" × 11" and $3.69 at 6" × 9". The handwriting workbook guide has the full price table, and the KDP royalty calculator on our sister site works out other prices.

Figures from KDP's Paperback Printing Cost help page for the Amazon.com marketplace. Other marketplaces print at different prices.

Make the book

Open Trace Press from one of the buttons above, pick a trim and a line size, page through the preview to the word pages after Z, and download the interior and its cover. It's free to try, with a small footer line on every page and PREVIEW on the cover. $19 once removes both, for every book you make after.

For a single child's name instead of a book, the free name tracing worksheet makes one page like these.