Read Naturally
Stories Correlate
to Most Frequent Word List
Many teachers are familiar with Fry's list of the 1000 most frequently used words in the English language. Read Naturally passages are made up of a high percentage of these words. For example, 96 percent of the words that made up level 1.0 and 93 percent of the words that make up 2.0 are on this list. In other words, an average of three words per story in 1.0 and five words per story in 2.0 are not on this list.
While we agree that students need to practice these very common words, we also believe that if students are to succeed they need to be continually challenged. Therefore, the percentage of words not on this list gradually increases as the Read Naturally levels get higher, exposing students to richer and more powerful words. In level 3.5R, 90% of the words appear on the 1,000 most frequent words list, and by the highest levels, the percentage averages about 87%.
It is appropriate for this percentage to dip in successively higher levels. As students progress, they are generally more experienced with the frequently used words and need to learn a richer and more powerful vocabulary. Read Naturally passages provide a good balance of common and less common words for students to practice.