Essential vocabulary for children

How many words do we need?

The Government’s literacy strategy requires children to learn 158 words by the age of 7. But the £1 million study by Jonathan Solity and Janet Vousden, of the Warwick University Institute of Education, found that only 100 of the most common words were needed to tackle any book.

It concluded that only 16 words accounted for a quarter of written English and that children could understand 48 per cent of texts studied by learning 100 “high-frequency” words.

100 you need ...
a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away, back, be, because, big, but, by, call, came, can, come, could, did, do, down, for, from, get, go, got, had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his, I, in, into, is, it, last, like, little, live, look, made, make, me, my, new, next, not, now, of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over, put, saw, said, see, she, so, some, take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time, to, today, too, two, up, us, very, was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with, you.

... 58 you don't
play, cat, day, dog, mum, no, dad, yes, another, ball, bed, been, boy, brother, can’t, dig, don’t door, first, girl, good, half, help, home, house, how, if, jump, just, laugh, love, man, many, may, more, much, must, name, night, or, people, push, pull, ran, school, seen, should, sister, than, these, took, tree, water, way, where, who, would, your.

Basic English

Compare the list above, for children, with the list of 850 essential words for adults, compiled by Ogden in 1930.

David Crystal comments: "Basic proved easy to learn to read ... [but] very difficult to write in the language in such a way that meaning was clearly preserved."

Full story as reported in The Times 9.12.05