The founders of Phonic Books are dyslexia trained reading specialists who taught in a dyslexia centre in London. When they began to publish decodable books, they wanted to include features that would help their students learn to read. They found that there was a lack of engaging and structured reading materials to consolidate the phonics […]
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In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Non-fiction decodable books are wonderful reading resources. They combine two essential parts of reading: word recognition (decoding) and world knowledge (language comprehension and subject vocabulary). Educators now recognise that […]
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For children to comprehend a text, they need to read it fluently. If the reading is disfluent, the reader will struggle to hold onto all the information needed to comprehend a sentence or paragraph. We know that reading fluency has three components: Accuracy – children need to be able to read words accurately. If they […]
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Scarborough’s Reading Rope is a wonderful theoretical framework for describing the complexity of reading and what we need to teach children in order for them to become fluent readers who can comprehend a text successfully. Decoding is on one strand of the rope, and language comprehension is on the other strand. These strands become increasingly […]
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In this testimonial, Sharon Dheraj shares how she uses the Totem and Talisman series in her classroom. Sharon is a SENCO in a one form entry primary school as well as a specialist teacher and assessor of dyslexia. *** My day-to-day responsibilities include overseeing the operation of the SEND Policy, coordinating provisions for pupils with […]
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Stanilas Dehaene, a leading neuroscientist, has researched how the brain learns. He has summarised his findings with the ‘four pillars of learning’. The first pillar is attention. Without attention we can’t learn. We need to focus on what is being learnt in order to absorb it. BUT – before attention – comes motivation. We need […]
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“My child gets 10/10 on their spelling tests but then forgets their spellings when free writing.” This is a statement that I often hear from parents. In schools, children typically get a weekly spelling list which they practise and then get tested on at a single word level. The next week, they receive a new […]
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How important is it to cultivate the love of reading in children? Decodable books are an essential part of a structured literacy approach, but they have a specific purpose. They are decodable exercises which students can use to practise the phonics skills they have learned. They are not designed to compete with the huge variety […]
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Although systematic, synthetic phonics teaching programmes are now a mandatory part of the UK National Curriculum for schools, one of the questions we are most frequently asked is still, ‘What are decodable books?’. Phonic Books co-founder, Tami Reis-Frankfort, provides a brief clarification of the meaning of the term, and explains why decodable books are so […]
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By Clair Wilson This article was originally published in the January 2023 issue of Dystinct Magazine. Click here for free access to this issue until December 2024. Reading is one of the most important skills we want our children to learn. We want our children to be able to read books and access information online, […]
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