109 Power Words

High frequency words are words that are especially high leverage because of how often they are found in written texts. Knowing as few as 13 of the 109 most frequently occurring words unlocks 25 to 50 percent of all texts written for children (Shifting the Balance, pg. 99).

As we work to support beginning readers in developing automaticity with words, we want to know which words students know. Determining which words are ‘islands of certainty’ for students and which are still unknown is especially important when it comes to determining which words to explicitly teach. As we assess high frequency words, we determine which words have become truly automatic-- that is, which words children can read or write fluently-- not just words students can figure out.

It is important to assess these 109 words to ensure instant and automatic retrieval of these critical high frequency words is established. Once children know simple steps for mapping speech to print, have working knowledge of the alphabetic system, and begin collecting orthographic knowledge through self-teaching, isolated testing of high frequency words becomes less important (Shifting the Balance, pg. 106).