What are decodable books?

Decodable books are controlled texts that beginner readers can read independently once they have been taught the spellings in the text. Children learning to read with phonics benefit from reading decodable texts because they allow them to practice what they have been taught and experience success. They also help children develop effective and successful strategies for reading: sounding out letters and blending them into words. Decodable books are fun decoding exercises.

Here are some tips about how to use decodable books:

1. Know your phonics programme

Decodable books complement any phonic programme you are teaching. Understanding the phonic progression of that programme is fundamental to knowing how to use suitable decodable books alongside it. It is not necessary for decodable books to progress in the same order as the program – but it is essential for the pupil to have covered the spellings in the decodable book they are reading, so that they can read it independently and successfully.

2. Prepare for reading

Make sure that the children have learned the graphemes before they start reading. Show them how to word-build, blend, segment and practice reading through a variety of word reading and spelling activities and games. Reading a decodable book independently requires enough preparation so that it is a successful experience for the beginner/ struggling reader.

3. No ‘Messing with guessing’

Encourage and model blending at all times. Ask the child to sound out the word and blend the sounds together into words. If there is a spelling they don’t know, provide it and get the child to blend through the word with this new information. No guessing! Encouraging the child to guess or use ‘mixed methods’ (picture, context, grammar) won’t help him/her read that word the next time he/she encounters it. We want children to be confident in decoding any word they encounter.

4. Reading is for meaning

Always check if the reader understands the words in the text. This is a great opportunity to expand vocabulary within the context of a story. Skilled reading is a combination of word recognition (including decoding) and language comprehension. Children need to develop their vocabulary in order to comprehend effectively. The teacher can develop comprehension at different levels: factual, inferential etc.

5. Practice and more practice

Reading a number of decodable texts with the same spellings will help children remember and commit new words to long-term memory. Some reading schemes have a number of books at each level. You can also ask children to re-read texts with expression or in pairs. This will develop reading fluency. Include phonic games and other reading activities such as ‘sound seeking’ in which the child reads a text and finds words with various spellings of a specific phoneme.

6. Whole class, groups or one-to-one?

Decodable texts are flexible and can be used in most settings. They can be read in whole class lessons (as part of the phonics lesson), in groups, paired reading and 1:1 for children who need extra support.

7. Age-appropriate decodables

Older, struggling readers will need age-appropriate decodable books in order to encourage and motivate them to re-engage in reading. Older students can suffer low self esteem due to previous failure, and offering them books which they consider ‘babyish’ reinforces this negativity. Finding age-appropriate decodables that those children will be happy to read, and be seen reading, makes a huge difference to their engagement and success.