diff --git a/sdks/go/examples/cookbook/combine/combine.go b/sdks/go/examples/cookbook/combine/combine.go
index 205f5156e322..33023b28f710 100644
--- a/sdks/go/examples/cookbook/combine/combine.go
+++ b/sdks/go/examples/cookbook/combine/combine.go
@@ -34,7 +34,8 @@ var (
 	input  = flag.String("input", "publicdata:samples.shakespeare", "Shakespeare plays BQ table.")
 	output = flag.String("output", "", "Output BQ table.")
 
-	minLength = flag.Int("min_length", 9, "Minimum word length")
+	minLength   = flag.Int("min_length", 9, "Minimum word length")
+	small_words = beam.NewCounter("extract", "small_words")
 )
 
 func init() {
@@ -67,11 +68,12 @@ type extractFn struct {
 	MinLength int `json:"min_length"`
 }
 
-func (f *extractFn) ProcessElement(row WordRow, emit func(string, string)) {
+func (f *extractFn) ProcessElement(ctx context.Context, row WordRow, emit func(string, string)) {
 	if len(row.Word) >= f.MinLength {
 		emit(row.Word, row.Corpus)
+	} else {
+		small_words.Inc(ctx, 1)
 	}
-	// TODO(herohde) 7/14/2017: increment counter for "small words"
 }
 
 // TODO(herohde) 7/14/2017: the choice of a string (instead of []string) for the
diff --git a/sdks/go/examples/wordcount/wordcount.go b/sdks/go/examples/wordcount/wordcount.go
index b2eb67d3b1bc..08d9cb57f4e4 100644
--- a/sdks/go/examples/wordcount/wordcount.go
+++ b/sdks/go/examples/wordcount/wordcount.go
@@ -106,23 +106,33 @@ var (
 // done automatically by the starcgen code generator, or it can be done manually
 // by calling beam.RegisterFunction in an init() call.
 func init() {
-	beam.RegisterFunction(extractFn)
 	beam.RegisterFunction(formatFn)
 }
 
 var (
-	wordRE  = regexp.MustCompile(`[a-zA-Z]+('[a-z])?`)
-	empty   = beam.NewCounter("extract", "emptyLines")
-	lineLen = beam.NewDistribution("extract", "lineLenDistro")
+	wordRE            = regexp.MustCompile(`[a-zA-Z]+('[a-z])?`)
+	empty             = beam.NewCounter("extract", "emptyLines")
+	small_word_length = flag.Int("small_word_length", 9, "small_word_length")
+	small_words       = beam.NewCounter("extract", "small_words")
+	lineLen           = beam.NewDistribution("extract", "lineLenDistro")
 )
 
-// extractFn is a DoFn that emits the words in a given line.
-func extractFn(ctx context.Context, line string, emit func(string)) {
+// extractFn is a DoFn that emits the words in a given line and keeps a count for small words.
+type extractFn struct {
+	SmallWordLength int `json:"min_length"`
+}
+
+func (f *extractFn) ProcessElement(ctx context.Context, line string, emit func(string)) {
 	lineLen.Update(ctx, int64(len(line)))
 	if len(strings.TrimSpace(line)) == 0 {
 		empty.Inc(ctx, 1)
 	}
 	for _, word := range wordRE.FindAllString(line, -1) {
+		// increment the counter for small words if length of words is
+		// less than small_word_length
+		if len(word) < f.SmallWordLength {
+			small_words.Inc(ctx, 1)
+		}
 		emit(word)
 	}
 }
@@ -150,7 +160,7 @@ func CountWords(s beam.Scope, lines beam.PCollection) beam.PCollection {
 	s = s.Scope("CountWords")
 
 	// Convert lines of text into individual words.
-	col := beam.ParDo(s, extractFn, lines)
+	col := beam.ParDo(s, &extractFn{SmallWordLength: *small_word_length}, lines)
 
 	// Count the number of times each word occurs.
 	return stats.Count(s, col)