AVKO Educational Research Foundation
A non-profit organization devoted to helping
teachers, parents, and researchers since 1974

 [ For Parents and Home Schoolers ] [ Classroom Teachers ]
[ Catalog ] [ Workshops ] [ Home Page ]
 [ Research ] [ Freebies ] [ Media ]

AVKO comes from Audio, Visual, Kinesthetic, & Oral a multi-sensory approach.

The First 50 of the 214 Easiest Words to Learn
in Exact Statistical Order

with page references to The Patterns of English Spelling
and the New Word Families in Sentence Context
where more words sharing the same rime (or the same word family) can be found.
Words 1-25 Volume & Page in The Patterns of English Spelling Where More Words Sharing the Rime Can be found. Words 26-50 Volume & Page in The Patterns of English Spelling Where More Words Sharing the Rime Can be found.

Volume

 Page 

Volume

 Page
1. I - - 26. day 3 301
2. a - - 27. that 1 131
3. is

1

 138 28. into 3 312
4. in

1

123

 29. today 3 301
5. you 3 317 30. like 3 329
6. he 3 304 31. yes 1 157
7. the 3 304 32. all 1 147
8. out 4 431 33. dog 1 114
9. good 4 404 34. hat

1

 131
10. it 1 133 35. and 2 227
11. me 3 304 36. big 1 113
12. old 2 241 37. ice 3 344
13.one 3 340

38. look

 4 409
14. see 3 305

39. year

 5 531
15. she 3 304 40. boy 3 303
16.time

3

 333 41. but 1 135
17. ten

1

 122 42. air 5 531
18. up

1

 130 43. how 3 318
19. book 4 409 44. over 6 670
20. come 3 334 45. can 1 121
21. get 1 132 46. did 1 108
22. go 3 309 47. looking 4 409
23. love 3 326 48. men 1 122
24. we 3 304 49. red 1 107
25. car 5 501 50. at 1 131

If you are interested in knowing what percentage of students in any grade from 2nd through 8th can spell these words or any of the over 5,000 words used in the New Iowa Spelling Scale that was used to determine the ranking of these words, you can look them up in The Reading Teacher's List of Over 5,000 Basic Spelling Words.   This is based on the latest complete research study on spelling.

  • All the words are in both alphabetical order and in the order of difficulty.  
  • You can look up any of these words and find all the other words that share the same level of difficulty.

The complete listing of the 214 Easiest Words to Learn in Exact Statistical Order can be found in The Patterns of English Spelling and in The Teaching of Reading:  A Continuum from Kindergarten through College.

If you have comments about this website or questions concerning spelling, phonics, learning disabilities, homeschooling, etc., you may always e-mail to DonMcCabe@aol.com.  We appreciate any comments that will help us make this website even more useful. 

Call Toll Free:  1-866-285-6612
Fax:  (810) 686-1101
E-mail: Webmaster: avkoemail@aol.com 
or  Write:  
Don McCabe, Research Director
AVKO Educational Research Foundation
3084 Willard Road, Suite W
Birch Run, MI 48415-7801

All donations are greatly appreciated.  If you would like to support our mission which is to raise the level of literacy to the point where the words, illiteracy, phonemic awareness, learning disabilities, dysgraphia, family literacy, adult literacy, and illegible handwriting will no longer have relevance, please mail your tax-deductible check (in U.S. dollars) to The AVKO Foundation, 3084 Willard Road, Suite W, Birch Run, MI 48415-7801.  The AVKO Foundation is recognized by the IRS as a 501(C)3 publicly supported organization working with teachers, parents, tutors, and home schooling parents, publishing materials developed by its research, and providing free daily tutoring at its local reading clinic.