diff --git a/lib/count_words.rb b/lib/count_words.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a1e8b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/count_words.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+class CountWords
+
+    # parse text
+    def run(filename)
+
+        # read the text file
+        text = readFile(filename)
+
+        # strip out non alpha characters
+        cleanedText = stripCharacters(text.downcase)
+
+        # count all words
+        wordCount = countAllWords(cleanedText)
+
+        # reverse sort word counts
+        sortedWords = reverseSortWordCounts(wordCount)
+
+        # display word plus it's found value
+        displayWordCounts(sortedWords)
+    end
+
+    # get the contents of a file
+    def readFile(filename)
+        # TODO 1. ensure file extension is .txt
+        #      2. limit file size or refactor app to stream lines
+        #      3. ensure the file exists
+        File.read(filename)
+    end
+
+    # strip non alpha characters from text
+    def stripCharacters(text)
+        text.scan(/[\w']+/)
+    end
+
+    # count all the words and add them to a hash
+    def countAllWords(cleanedText)
+        wordCount = {}
+        cleanedText.each { |word|
+            if wordCount[word] # if word exists, increment the number of times it has been found
+                wordCount[word] = wordCount[word] + 1
+            else               # if word does not exist, set it's found value to 1
+                wordCount[word] = 1
+            end
+        }
+        wordCount
+    end
+
+    # reverse sort word counts
+    def reverseSortWordCounts(wordCount)
+        wordCount.sort_by{|_key, value| value}.reverse
+    end
+
+    # display sorted word counts
+    def displayWordCounts(sortedWords)
+        sortedWords.each { |_key, value| 
+            p _key + " is mentioned " + value.to_s + " times"
+        }
+    end
+    
+end
+
+# CountWords.new.run('speech.txt')
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diff --git a/spec/count_words_spec.rb b/spec/count_words_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b540d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/count_words_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+require 'rspec'
+require 'count_words'
+
+describe CountWords do
+    it 'should be a Class' do
+        expect(described_class.is_a? Class).to eq true
+    end
+
+    it 'should read a file that exists' do
+        countWords = CountWords.new
+        expect(countWords.readFile("speech.txt")).to be_a_kind_of(String)
+    end
+    
+    it 'should strip out non alpha characters besides apostrophes' do
+        # this could be expanded upon to include non keyboard characters
+        countWords = CountWords.new
+        text = "aaa./,;'[]\!@#$%^&*(){}|:<>?"
+        expect(countWords.stripCharacters(text)).to eq ["aaa", "'"]
+    end
+
+    it 'should count words' do
+        countWords = CountWords.new
+        textArray = ["a", "wonderful", "world", "this", "is", "a", "super", "super", "super", "wonderful", "world"]
+        textHash = { "a" => 2, "wonderful" => 2, "world" => 2, "this" => 1, "is" => 1, "super" => 3 }
+        expect(countWords.countAllWords(textArray)).to eq textHash
+    end
+
+    it 'should reverse sort a hash' do
+        countWords = CountWords.new
+        textHash = { "a" => 1, "wonderful" => 2 }
+        reverseSortedText = [["wonderful", 2], ["a", 1]]
+        expect(countWords.reverseSortWordCounts(textHash)).to eq reverseSortedText
+    end
+
+    # TODO - figure out how to stub or mock console out and test the actual written output to console
+end
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