Table 3.

Most Frequently Used Nouns by Grade

	First grade			Fourth grade
	Noun	Occurrences	#/1000 words	Noun	Occurrences	#/1000 words
1	home	60	11.06	mom (mom’s)	148	6.74
2	mom	51	9.40	home	97	4.42
3	day (days)	30	5.53	day (days)	86	3.91
4	dad (dad’s)	24	4.43	house (houses)	80	3.64
5	friend (friends)	24	4.43	time (times)	74	3.37
6	school	23	4.24	Dad (dad)	66	3.00
7	fun	21	3.87	school	62	2.82
8	homework	20	3.69	bed	47	2.14
9	house	18	3.32	door	47	2.14
10	TV	15	2.77	friend (friends)	42	1.91
11	bed	14	2.58	dog (dogs)	39	1.78
12	birthday	14	2.58	game (games)	39	1.78
13	Sister	13	2.40	sister (sisters)	33	1.50
14	game (games)	12	2.21	car	32	1.46
15	dog	11	2.03	homework	32	1.46
16	family	11	2.03	fun	31	1.41
17	toy (toys)	11	2.03	room	30	1.37
18	dinner	10	1.84	water	28	1.27
19	door	9	1.66	minute (minutes)	28	1.27
20	mommy	9	1.66	brother (brother)	27	1.23
21	pool	9	1.66	tree (trees)	26	1.18
22	room	9	1.66	TV	25	1.14
23	duck	9	1.66	pool	24	1.09
24	sleep	9	1.66	name (names)	22	1.00
25	bath	8	1.48	outside	20	0.91
26	cat	8	1.48

Note. Taken from the list of most occurring words from the written samples. Pronouns are not included but all plural and possessive forms of the noun were added.