The list counts flemmas: a word with its endings. Nation's 98% counts families: a word with the words made from it. On the passage the lab's share with names is 94.3%, and 95.6% when the family step is added. Those 1.3 points are 12 words, and reading them shows what a family step can do and what it cannot.
Core ideas
Three ideas, and the second is where the figure comes from.
Walk, walks, walked and walking are one flemma. So are child and children, and good, better and best. A flemma only adds the endings the first courses taught. The 2,800 words of the list are counted this way, and so is the lab's share up to the names.
Delight with delightful, and care with careless, are two families, each of two flemmas. A family keeps the same root and adds a beginning such as un- or re-, which turns the meaning, or an ending such as -ful, -less, -ness or -ly, which changes the kind of word. Nation's 98% is counted by family, which means a reader who knows the root is counted as knowing the longer word.
The family step takes one beginning or one ending off a word the list does not cover. If what is left is on the list, the word is counted as a family member. It tests spellings, not meanings, so it also passes some words whose meaning has moved away from their root.
The material
With the passage chosen, the table holds twelve rows. Read each one and ask whether it is the same word family as its root.
The last two lessons counted words. This one asks what a word is. When someone says a reader needs to know 98% of the words of a page, they have counted in a certain way, and the lab counts in another. The two ways have names, and the difference is about one point.
A flemma is a word and the forms made from it by the endings you met in the first courses: -s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, and the forms that do not follow the rules. Walk and walked are one flemma. A family is a flemma and the words made from it with a beginning or a different kind of ending: happy, unhappy and happiness are one family. The word list counts flemmas. Nation counts families.
The lab reads a page in this order. First it asks if a word is on the list, by the rules, and counts it as covered if so. Second, if not, it asks if the word is a name. Third, if not, it takes off one beginning or one ending and asks again. A word that passes the third step is counted as a family word. A word that passes none is not covered.
So the three numbers are in order, each including the one before. On the passage they read 91.0% for the list, 94.3% with names, and 95.6% with families. The second step adds 3.3 points and the third adds 1.3. The passage has 12 family words, each appearing once, and 1.3 points is 12 in 936.
Set the second menu to the words a family adds. On the passage the rows include delightful, unwelcome, unwilling, recollect and overtaken. On the modern documents the first row is disability, made from dis- and ability, and it appears ten times. The step adds 1.0 point to that text, from 92.7% to 93.7%. On the play it adds 0.8, from 94.6% to 95.4%.
The step cuts a spelling and looks at what is left. Notable could be cut to not and -able, since both are on the list; the lab tries note first, so its cut is the right one. In the play, resides becomes re- and sides, and endure becomes end and -ure: there the row is wrong too, and the share counts both. The cut is right for delightful, and the lab cannot tell which is which.
The design notes behind this Subject put the gap between counting flemmas and counting families on general text at three to six points; that is an estimate, not a count you can see. The gap the lab shows on these three texts is between 0.8 and 1.3 points. The lab uses a short list of beginnings and endings, and a full family count uses many more. So a full count would add more than the lab does, though some of the lab's rows are only spellings.
Either way you count, the answer for these texts is the same: below 98%. The words that stand between you and an easy read are the ones in the table of words not covered, and the family step has already taken out the ones it can.
Interactive
Every word of the text checked against the list, by the rules of the nine courses before
Method
Four questions, asked of each word the list lacks.
If the rules of the earlier courses take it back to a word on the list, it is a flemma of that word and the list covers it. Stop.
A capital letter in the middle of a sentence, or capitals all through, and the lab sets it apart. Stop.
Unwelcome loses un- and leaves welcome. Careless loses -less and leaves care. If what is left is on the list, the word joins that word's family.
The lab cannot. You can. Notable loses -able and leaves not, which is on the list, but the word does not mean not able: it is made from note, and the lab stopped at the first cut that found a listed word.
These are rows from the passage, the play and the modern documents, with a note on each from a reader, not from the lab.
The first four are what a family means. A reader who knows delight, willing, collect and note has most of what the longer word says. Notable also contains not, which is on the list, but the lab tries the stem with an e first, so it finds note. The last two are wrong. To reside has nothing to do with sides, and to endure nothing to do with an end. The lab passes both, because it reads spellings, and its count includes them. The passage's twelve rows also include carriage from carry, which is a judgement of the same kind.
Two things follow. The lab's family step cannot take a wrong row away, so you have to read the rows. And it uses a short list of beginnings and endings, so a full family count, with every beginning and ending a full list gives, would add more.
You should be able to say what a flemma and a family each include, switch the lab to the words a family adds, read how many points the family step adds to the share, and say which of the lab's rows are real families and which are only spellings that look like them.
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