Metrics

Early Readers Metric Definitions: Understanding the Charts and Data

The English language is only approximately 50% phonetically regular, meaning that only about half of all words follow standard spelling and pronunciation. While there is not a consensus on the exact order of each subcomponent of skills to be taught in reading, there is a consensus that children need to understand both sight words, which are not decodable phonetically, with phonics-based words, which are decodable by letter sounds and blends.

Unique Words: Unique words are the total of individual words. For this measure, each word is counted a single time.
Why it matters: Many children’s books promoting literacy use many of the same words over and over so children don’t actually get enough gradual exposure to new words and are just memorizing text. The Early Readers™ book series has been designed with careful attention to increasing this exposure and each word was carefully selected and designed in a particular sequence.

Total Words: Total words are the complete number of words in each book, including repeats. For this measure, each word is counted each time it occurs.
Why it matters: In the Early Readers™ book series, careful attention has been paid to how common and frequent each word is for its selection criteria and the amount of times it appears within and between books. This measure gives an idea of the overall length of each book.

CVC Easy Phonic Words: CVC easy phonic words follow a simple consonant-vowel-consonant pattern and are also known as short vowel words. In these words, the vowel sound is always the short vowel sound, surrounded by 2 consonants, making it simple to sound out.
Why it matters: These words are the foundation for phonics-based reading approaches. Children should have a good understanding of all letter sounds before starting sound blending activities. Unique CVC words is the frequency of each individual word and total CVC words are the complete total including repeats.

Highest Frequency Words: Did you know that there are 107 words that make up about 50% of all written words in English! The words are often prepositions and articles, and if your child can read all of these words, they will already be able to read 50% of all printed text!
Why it matters: These are the words your child will have exposure to more than any other written word in printed text in English. Having a firm grasp of these words build a strong foundation for reading at any level. Being able to read high frequency words quickly and accurately helps children to read the most common words in the language quickly and without needing to decode. Unique highest frequency words are the frequency of each individual word, and total highest frequency words are the complete total of all these words, including repeats.

Common Children’s Sight Words for Pre-K, Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade: These are the sight words that children are most likely to encounter in the classroom and during early reading instruction (grades pre-k through 2) and in children’s books. These words become harder to read and are more difficult to learn to distinguish from others (i.e., the, there, they) as the levels progress.
Why it matters: Picking words that children are most likely to be taught and have a higher likelihood of exposure to helps increase reader confidence.  Because English is only about 50% regular for decoding and spelling, having a firm foundation of sight words is critical to overall reading success.  Being able to read common sight words quickly and accurately helps children to read the most common words quickly and without needing to decode, thus increasing automaticity. Unique sight words is the count of each individual word without repeats and total sight words is the complete total of these words including repeats.

Common Children’s Sight Word Nouns: These are sight words that children are likely to encounter in their everyday lives and in children’s literature.
Why it matters: These words help children connect their reading to their everyday world and support reading development by building a solid foundation of frequently encountered items. Unique common children’s sight word nouns is the count of each individual word and total common sight word nouns is the complete total of these words, including repeats.  

Fry 1st 100: Similar to Highest Frequency Words, this list comprises most common words by frequency, while not specifically focused on leveling words by early grades, like the Dolch lists.  There are 10 total Fry lists of 100 words each for a total of 1000 words.
Why it matters: These common words are important for overall frequency of word use.