The 300 Most Common Words
The 300 Most Common Words
These are the words that are  the most common words students find in reading, and writing, and need to learn  how to spell.     The  first 100 words make up 50% of all written material.  All 300 common words make  up 65% of all written material.  These words are listed, going down, according  to frequency of use.  Children see them over and over again in their beginning  stories and they learn them using "beginning sounds" and simple phonetic clues  along with context.  Students should be able to recognize these words  instantly for reading fluency and be able to spell them rapidly and correctly  for writing fluency by the third grade.
Keep in mind that  there are common suffixes for many of the words.  Such as: y, ed, ly, er,  ing, est, es, and s.