Research behind the most important words in reading

Magic Words International undertook an extensive worldwide literature search of wordlists and word frequency research to source the highest quality and most current data available.

Essentially the words are sourced from daily reading - reading of newspapers, reports, news items online, books and magazines and encompass the average reading of an average person in the population.

Once a person has mastered the most frequently used 300 wordsin English they can read on average 2/3rds of the words used in print.

There are many dubious lists and approaches including lists entirely sourced from children’s writing. These lists are of limited value, and hold little appeal to most teachers, as they transfer poorly to various reading schemes and indeed to general reading.

Magic Words resources are designed to support the average reading of any person in the population so that they can confidently pick up any reading material, reading scheme, daily newspaper etc. and competenlyt read.

A meta-analysis of this data was conducted involving extensive study, a robust selection criteria and high level academic rigour to determine and select the most statistically significant set of words possible. This study produced a unique compilation of words that Magic Words International was able to group into levels (colours), based upon the statistical analysis, to provide the greatest efficacy in teaching outcomes for those learning to read in English. The educational value of this unique compilation of words, in this order, and frequency, surpasses other lists published to date. This powerful list provides superior educational outcomes and is now used in over 80% of Australian Primary Schools and International Schools.

Children who learn their Magic Words increase their reading accuracy, reading speed (fluency or automaticity), and develop stronger comprehension.

Magic Words has completed a Norming Research Study which calculates the average number of Magic Words students should be able to read term by term across the first years of schooling.