A study was conducted to answer the question, "What are the basic words in a list of words kindergarten through sixth grade students will frequently encounter in their reading?" The study was limited to the words the students would encounter in their textbooks (including basals). A corpus of 7,230 words was then analyzed by two raters to determine those that were basic. The major finding was that out of 7,230 high frequency words, 5,084 were found to be basic. The study also indicated that there are identifiable high frequency basic words that can be used as a tool for classroom instruction. Specifically, the 5,084 words identified in the study appear quite frequently in the content-related materials students will commonly encounter in their reading. The study of suffixes indicates that instruction in their use might be most effective if it focused on those that change basic words to noun forms. It would also appear useful to provide students with an awareness of the dynamics of change along the concrete/abstract and specific/general dimensions. (Three tables of data are included.) (MG)