The Vocabulary of Core Reading Programs

This study described and analyzed the vocabulary of 4 current, best-selling core reading programs and developed word lists based on these analyses. Results showed a good deal of similarity but also some significant differences among the programs. Across grades 1-6, all of them included a substantial number of tokens (approximately 380,000-660,000) and a substantial number of types (approximately 18,000-21,000). Approximately 90% of words were quite frequent, among the 4,000 most frequent English words. Most words were not repeated frequently; about 45% occurred only once or twice. Approximately 3,500 words were identified as relatively frequent and widely dispersed and about 1,000 words as relatively frequent, widely dispersed, and likely to be unknown. The lists developed include types in the programs, word families in the programs, frequent word families, general-utility word families, and challenging general-utility words families. The discussion centers on educational uses of the findings and the lists.