Initial reading schemes and their high frequency words.

Spencer, Robin ; Hay, Ian

The authors investigated three initial reading schemes, PM Library, Story Box, and the Young Australia Series, to identify their high frequency words from a bank of almost 10,000 words. In this article they discuss these words and the need for teachers to be aware of high frequency words in early reading materials.

Word recognition is an essential component in the mastery of reading (Compton, 1997; Freebody & Byrne, 1988; Strickland & Morrow, 1991; Szeszulski & Szeszulski, 1987), and considerable evidence suggests that the major difficulty confronting the beginning reader is the development of rapid, automatic word recognition skills (Adams, 1990; Byrne, Freebody & Gates, 1992; Chall, 1983; Ehri, 1991). Efficient readers use a variety of orthographic data to recognise word units, such as individual letters, letter clusters, morphemes, word stems, and word patterns (Stanovich, 1980; Taft, 1991). It is the rapid visual processing of word units that seems to evade children with reading problems and reduces their motivation to continue to read (Barron, 1986; Gipe, 1995; Samuels, 1994; Stanovich, 1986). In the process of rapid word recognition, rather than converting the letter group into a sequence of sounds, blending the sounds, and matching them to a known spoken pattern, readers retrieve stored information simultaneously about how a word looks and sounds.

The automatic visual recall of words assists in the decoding and comprehension of written text. The greater children's exposure to print, the more likely they are to develop this visual orthographic representation, to automatise this information, and retrieve words from their long-term memory word bank (Blanton & Blanton, 1994; Reid, 1988). In addition, children's early levels of attention to print and oral language influence their ability to identify words, understand the text, and achieve success with reading (Gillet & Temple, 1994; Strickland & Morrow, 1991).

Clay (1991) claimed that limited word recognition and fluency were the probable causes of young readers' lack of comprehension. This concurs with the research that indicates that at the early stages of learning to read children use all their working memory capacity to decode the symbols and text units and thus meaning is lost at the expense of decoding (Brown, 1982; Samuels, 1994; Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1994). For a child to free up working memory in order to be more engaged in comprehension, the automatic processing of orthographic information is required. The automaticity of word recognition allows children to devote the majority of their mental resources to understanding the text and acquiring new concepts and information (Mauer & Kamhi, 1996; Perfetti, 1985).

To enhance automaticity of word recognition, practice and overlearning are often required by some students. Rather than isolated drill, however, this needs to be embedded in motivating activities that include reading high interest text, games and activities. Once a child has a knowledge of the separate words the focus shifts, when reading aloud, to grouping words together as phrasing (Clay, 1991, 1993). Phrasing needs to be practised on known text, as new, unfamiliar text requires the use of monitoring and self-correcting strategies that slow down the reading process and the acquisition of meaning. Assisting the child to know the words is setting the child up for success with reading.

To facilitate the process of developing a child's word bank, reading researchers have focussed on core lists of high frequency words. Some of the main word lists historically used in Australian schools are: the Salisbury Word List (Bishop, Wilkinson & Agnew, 1978-79); the Fry New Instant Word List (Fry, 1980); the Dolch Sight Words List (Dolch, 1953); the Holdaway Word List (Holdaway, 1972); and the Thomas Word List (Thomas, 1977). These lists were derived from a range of countries, collection times and text sources. Word lists, however, should not be static but reflect the reading resources and schemes used within classrooms. The reading material used within a classroom has an influence on the classroom relevance of a particular word list. Traditional word lists need to be monitored and, at times, more contemporary and relevant lists developed that include words from current classroom reading schemes, enabling children to read across a range of material.

One advantage of identifying a core list of essential words is that it assists in the monitoring of a child's progress using authentic reading tasks and so links assessment, programming and instruction. Knowing which words a child recognises from the reading material enables the teacher to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the child's learning and the teacher's instruction. It also enables the teacher to better plan the next step in that child's learning/reading sequence, and so assists in the identification of text and activities aimed at fostering a more positive reading experience for the child. This puts into practice the notion that `each child must have his or her own starting point and work from that individual platform to somewhere else' (Clay, 1993: p.12).

The reading schemes PM Library, Story Box and Young Australia Series are now frequently used within Australian and overseas classrooms as the basis for early reading acquisition. These schemes tend to reflect a language-based approach to the mastery of reading where the focus is on motivating stories and whole text. The books within these schemes were not specifically constructed around a core word list.

In essence, there are at least two advantages to teachers in having access to a contemporary word list. First, it assists in the selection of books, texts and activities that focus on particular words that regularly appear in their students' reading. Second, children are better able to develop their fluency, confidence, and comprehension when reading familiar words and texts. Given these advantages the following two questions are investigated. What are the core words within the contemporary early reading schemes PM Library, Story Box and Young Australia Series? How do the high frequency words from these schemes compare with previously developed high frequency word lists?

Method

Procedure

To gain a list of high frequency words using the PM Library, Story Box and Young Australia Series collections, some 9,731 words from 133 books were typed into a word bank. The use, however, of commercial word count programs proved unreliable as parts of words were counted as whole words (e.g. `he' in `the' would be counted twice because the letter pattern appeared twice). Thus, a specific computer program to produce a frequency list was developed. For each word the frequency of its occurrence within the 133 books was calculated (e.g. `the' 598 times; `my' 185 times, and `little' 69 times). The list was printed in descending order from highest frequency to low frequency.

Material

Material used from the three popular reading schemes included:

* The Story Box Series (Butler, 1984): the words from eighty books of the Story Box, Stage 1, For the Initial Year at School Series were incorporated. This involved twenty-four books from the Read-Together (Shared Big Books) collection, twenty-four books from the Get-Ready collection, and thirty-two books from Ready-Set-Go collection.

* The PM Library (Randell, Giles, & Smith, 1995): the words from twenty books from the PM Starters 1 and twenty books from PM Starters 2 were included.

* Young Australia Series, Levels 1, 2, and 3 (Cooper, Elkins, Johnson & Williams, 1981): the words from thirteen books in the Young Australia Series, Levels 1, 2, and 3, were included in the word bank.

Results

The first fifty high frequency words from the three reading schemes under review are listed, in order, in Table 1, and the next 350 in Table 2. The words are clustered in groups of fifty to assist in identifying the frequency of their occurrence. The names of story characters, such as Tim and Kate, have been excluded from the lists.

Table 1: First fifty highest frequency words associated with the PM Library, Story Box and Young Australia reading schemes, in descending order

 1 the
 2 a
 3 I
 4 is
 5 said
 6 and
 7 my
 8 in
 9 to
 10 here
 11 you
 12 look
 13 can
 14 we
 15 come
 16 up
 17 it
 18 me
 19 big
 20 went
 21 see
 22 he
 23 for
 24 go
 25 am
 26 little
 27 this
 28 will
 29 no
 30 on
 31 cat
 32 they
 33 out
 34 at
 35 what
 36 dog
 37 she
 38 mother
 39 are
 40 with
 41 get
 42 house
 43 where
 44 down
 45 ran
 46 of
 47 old
 48 all
 49 too
 50 like

Table 2: Next 350 high frequency words associated with the PM Library, Story Box and Young Australia reading schemes, in descending order

 51 it's
 52 did
 53 back
 54 over
 55 I'll
 56 dad
 57 fish
 58 pig
 59 red
 60 was
 61 dark
 62 comes
 63 grandpa
 64 some
 65 going
 66 one
 67 there
 68 mum
 69 do
 70 got
 71 home
 72 has
 73 her
 74 after
 75 jump
 76 way
 77 us
 78 rabbit
 79 into
 80 yes
 81 be
 82 pumpkin
 83 not
 84 jumped
 85 so
 86 want
 87 his
 88 road
 89 run
 90 that
 91 elephant
 92 make
 93 oh
 94 that's
 95 together
 96 balloon
 97 bear
 98 cow
 99 won't
100 catch
101 them
102 new
103 I'm
104 hello
105 had
106 town
107 then
108 mouse
109 stop
110 around
111 inside
112 two
113 bed
114 sleep
115 good
116 creep
117 don't
118 duck
119 bird
120 yellow
121 put
122 under
123 possum
124 three
125 giant
126 play
127 can't
128 something
129 him
130 truck
131 ha
132 hairy
133 away
134 fishing
135 how
136 donkey
137 car
138 sing
139 book
140 lamb
141 horse
142 boy
143 toe
144 black
145 school
146 ball
147 pet
148 eat
149 who
150 your
151 tree
152 monkey
153 goes
154 came
155 looked
156 off
157 birthday
158 sheep
159 monster
160 frog
161 bath
162 blue
163 path
164 but
165 name
166 legs
167 chair
168 table
169 clown
170 shoes
171 ice-cream
172 he's
173 wheels
174 tea
175 or
176 honey
177 everywhere
178 fly
179 swing
180 splash
181 outside
182 green
183 eggs
184 day
185 swapped
186 white
187 bag
188 children
189 pencil
190 family
191 care
192 babies
193 read
194 have
195 were
196 Mr
197 sun
198 shop
199 thank
200 along
201 pants
202 frightened
203 smarty
204 an
205 swim
206 tuck
207 fast
208 climb
209 flying
210 woman
211 howled
212 when
213 tail
214 full
215 wants
216 four
217 five
218 bus
219 ah
220 help
221 nose
222 mud
223 pot
224 song
225 lazy
226 gone
227 right
228 dance
229 jelly
230 farmer
231 fire
232 man
233 who's
234 bought
235 made
236 sack
237 feet
238 what's
239 wizard
240 fix
241 talk
242 tip-toe
243 go-kart
244 picture
245 colour
246 swish
247 pony
248 hit
249 swimming
250 today
251 garden
252 hen
253 tins
254 bubble
255 things
256 moo
257 quack
258 oink
259 door
260 sold
261 night
262 tickle
263 giraffe
264 six
265 spider
266 silly
267 driver
268 says
269 feel
270 daddy
271 steps
272 howled
273 grumpy
274 magic
275 wait
276 tennis
277 brown
278 bad
279 draw
280 paint
281 our
282 scary
283 Mrs
284 feed
285 tell
286 hay
287 ride
288 bread
289 roared
290 people
291 give
292 if
293 rose
294 room
295 bull
296 puddles
297 drink
298 bike
299 orange
300 jumping
301 again
302 trees
303 hat
304 tonight
305 poor
306 caterpillar
307 painting
308 doors
309 wave
310 friend
311 brother
312 butterfly
313 lives
314 ladder
315 football
316 wolf
317 string
318 surprise
319 lovely
320 sea
321 wet
322 milk
323 know
324 pool
325 about
326 asleep
327 water
328 cried
329 wash
330 drive
331 bulldozer
332 engine
333 riding
334 climbing
335 train
336 gate
337 I've
338 goat
339 ducks
340 very
341 warm
342 cloud
343 cupboard
344 box
345 cake
346 baby
347 hill
348 moon
349 now
350 more
351 say
352 thing
353 kangaroos
354 live
355 we'll
356 king
357 sleeping
358 dogs
359 open
360 plane
361 reading
362 years
363 puddle
364 funny
365 here
366 crash
367 just
368 let's
369 fat
370 butter
371 found
372 mountain
373 lunch
374 cold
375 its
376 rubbish
377 their
378 gum
379 baked
380 bean
381 mean
382 party
383 farm
384 helicopter
385 stick
386 dancing
387 skating
388 stairs
389 didn't
390 couldn't
391 could
392 walk
393 paddle
394 snuggle
395 flop
396 stayed
397 wouldn't
398 shark
399 bite
400 hop

Comparison with other high frequency word lists

In order to validate the frequency of the fifty words listed in Table 1 a comparison was made with the first fifty words of five other high frequency word lists: the Salisbury Word List (Bishop, Wilkinson & Agnew, 1978-79); the Fry New Instant Word List (Fry, 1980); the Dolch Sight Words List (Dolch, 1953); the Holdaway Word List (Holdaway, 1972), and the Thomas Word List (Thomas, 1977). Thirty per cent of all Table 1 core words appeared in all five of the other lists. These words could be seen as forming an essential list that would be useful to a student across any reading scheme and include the words the, a, I, is, said, and, in, to, you, we, it, he, at, of and all. Seventy-six per cent of Table 1 words appeared in at least one other core word list, increasing the likelihood that mastery of these words would enable students better entry into other reading material. Ten words were unique to the Table 1 list: big, am, little, this, cat, dog, house, where, ran, old.

Discussion

Mastery of core sight reading words represents an efficiency in the teaching/learning process that benefits the teacher in terms of teaching time and sequencing of teaching strategies, and in the child's learning time and generalisation of skills (Chall, 1983; Clay, 1991, 1993; Hunt, 1994). The mastery of core words also assists in the development of children's independence in reading and enhances their sense of control over the text and willingness to take risks in approaching new reading passages (Hay, 1995).

The commonality between the high frequency words of the PM Library, Story Box and the Young Australia Series reading schemes and the traditional word lists suggests that targeting these words will assist children to generalise to other reading material and into writing tasks. There are, however, differences between the traditional word lists and the list developed with this research. This new list represents a contemporary list of essential words that may be well related to the reading scheme material used in regular Australian classrooms.

Within the first 150 words, pronouns (e.g. she, he, us, me, him, her) and words associated with the tense of verbs (e.g. come, came, comes) are often represented. Pronouns are pivotal to the reader's comprehension of text and even if the child is able to say them, the teacher still needs to evaluate the reader's understanding of who the pronoun refers to, in relationship to the text. Language problems, particularly those associated with pronouns and the tenses of verbs, are common characteristics of students with reading difficulties (Clay, 1991; Kamhi & Catts, 1986). Teachers, therefore, need to explain to students who are at the beginning stages of reading how words change in relationship to the tense and structure of the sentence.

The list also identified a number of contractions (e.g. it's, I'm, I'll, that's, don't); as a consequence, the teacher needs to spend time with the child to explain what these contractions mean and how they are generated. In addition, compound words were well represented within the second 100 words of the list (e.g. something, inside, grandpa, birthday). Such words provide the teacher with opportunities to explore with children how words are constructed. Overall, the variety of word patterns within the two lists provides the teacher with many opportunities to instruct the beginning reader in the use of word identification skills such as letter recognition, sounding out, knowledge of common letter patterns, blending, segmentation, and syllabification for constructing meaning. A knowledge of these skills and how to use them in context facilitates the process whereby students become independent readers.

Sight words need to be taught, but taught in conjunction with an emphasis upon the meaning and the structure of the English language, as early readers require extensive exposure to stories, words, pictures and conversations in order to hone oral and written language skills associated with syntax, meaning, prediction, and validation. Similarly, the teaching of words as units should not replace the need for students to have mastery of phonemic awareness. Children's awareness of the phonemic structure of spoken words is a significant predictor of their success in learning to read (Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Ehri, 1991; Griffith & Olson, 1992). Children who fail to acquire phonemic awareness and phonological processing are severely disadvantaged in their ability to master print and spelling (Adams, 1990; MacDonald & Cornwall, 1995; Torgesen, 1993).

The skill of word recognition is developmental, with Gillet and Temple (1994) and Marsh, Friedman, Welch and Desberg (1981), describing five stages of development. These stages are:

i) glance and guess;

ii) sophisticated guessing;

iii) simple phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences (e.g. letter sounding out);

iv) recognition of analogy (recognition of word patterns within a word, such as and in sand);

v) later word recognition, involving compound words and syllabification (e.g. recognising playground as play plus ground).

Furthermore, Tunmer and his colleagues maintain that when confronted with an unfamiliar word, the child should first be encouraged to look into the word for familiar letter and spelling patterns, and then to use context as back up support to confirm hypotheses as to what that word might be, e.g. make is m plus ake, as cake is c plus ake (Iversen & Tunmer, 1993; Tunmer & Chapman, 1993).

Word recognition is an essential skill in fluent reading, but rather than a drill activity is best taught with a focus on developing a child's use of metacognitive (thinking and reviewing) strategies, including those associated with orthographic analogies (letter patterns and word families). The aim is to make the beginning reader aware of the inter-relatedness of visual patterns and sounds shared by different words. Certainly, effective beginning reading instruction needs to contain a balance of activities with phonics and word recognition activities incorporated within engaging, meaningful, whole text activities. In other words, the teaching of sight words must not be an end in itself, but rather one means of achieving comprehension of text. The automatic recall of the word is best achieved by practice within the reading of whole, meaningful text, not by isolated word drills. The teacher moves the child, at the initial reading stage, from the text to the focus on the word unit, and back to the text. During the focus on the word unit stage, the child may need to orally rehearse the word and clearly visualise it away from other background text, with the teacher reviewing whether the child understands the word, its usage and structural features before returning the word back into the passage where it is again reviewed.

In particular, children with reading difficulties need to see the high frequency words in context if they are to better comprehend how written language works. Once children have mastery of even a few automatic words they should be exposed to more text that will support and utilise that group of known words. One teaching strategy to encourage this is to identify, from the earliest reading books across the three reading schemes, the high frequency words contained within each of the books and to print these words on the cover of the books. This will assist the teacher to quickly select and identify books tailored to the child's personal word bank. It is at this stage that children have the opportunity to work and play (e.g. board games) with a personal group of words, letters and texts that they know how to read and write. This `playing' promotes the learning of these words and enhances the prospect that the children will gain enjoyment from reading.

As many of the words in Tables 1 and 2 are commonly used to connect other words together, a list of short meaningful phrases/ sentences rather than isolated sight words needs to be considered when children are reviewing and mastering the words (e.g. come over here). Although the sight words identified in this study represent a logical and relevant list of core sight words, additional words developed from within the child's wider learning and social environment also need to be contemplated. For example, Rinsky (1993) has identified a range of life skill words that could be included with this study's word lists that would expand children's sight vocabulary. Furthermore, Baker and Freebody (1989) have investigated the content and frequency of words associated with a number of reading schemes used in Australian primary schools.

Given the strong links between reading and writing, a focus on words from books selected because of their interest to the initial reader should facilitate children's writing. The 400 high frequency words within Tables 1 and 2 provide an additional starting point for children to write their own stories. For example, the students could maintain their own personal dictionary of high frequency and interest words that they could refer to when writing.

In summary, we believe that the development of these high frequency word lists has the potential to be a useful tool for teachers involved in the education of the emergent and beginning reader. Students' mastery of the list should enhance their skills of attending to print, phrasing, fluency and, in turn, comprehension. The lists are particularly relevant for teachers who use certain language-based reading schemes with students at the initial stage of their reading development, as they focus on the recurring words associated with those schemes.

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Robin Spencer is an experienced Reading Recovery teacher with the Queensland Department of Education. She has worked as a primary classroom teacher and as a remedial and support teacher in a range of locations, and recently completed her Master of Special Education degree from Griffith University in the area of teaching students with learning disability.

Address: c/- Dr Ian Hay, Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111.

Email: I.Hay@edn.gu.edu.au

Ian Hay is Senior Lecturer in the School of Cognition, Language, and Special Education, Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Brisbane. His main teaching areas are in the Master of Special Education program, particularly in learning disability and reading. His research interests also include self-concept formation and strategy training.

Address: Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111.

Email: I.Hay@edn.gu.edu.au