A Decodable a Day Keeps Illiteracy Away

Teaching my kindergartners to read was so frustrating my first year. As kindergarten teachers, we naturally focus a lot on phonics.  After all, our main objective is to teach students the alphabet!  We spend a lot of time drilling and practicing letter names and sounds.  So, after spending so much time on letter/sound instruction, I'd bring small groups of students to the reading table and would give them books provided by our big box curriculum.  Suddenly, I had to tell students to stop sounding out the words and basically throw everything out the window that we had previously been learning.

Example of a "repetitive" or "predictable" text.

Another example of a "repetitive" or "predictable" text.

"Oh, this word you can't sound out. Look at the picture, does it give you a clue?" I was so frustrated that these stories could not be read without me telling them the sentence pattern or having them look at the pictures for clues. I hated that students weren't putting their letter-sound knowledge to use.   I hated that they were basically going through the motions of reading and just guessing everything. (See my previous post on that here.)  I wanted my students to practice their letter sounds!  I wanted to show them how you could put those individual sounds together to make a word!  I wanted them to apply all the phonemic awareness activities we had been doing. I wanted them to decode.  I knew we needed different books.  I knew we needed decodables.

It's confusing to me why there's often controversy over the use of decodable books. It seems obvious to me that we should allow our students time to practice the phonics skills we are learning.  Don't we want them to make the connection between sounds and words?  I would much rather have my students blending and sounding out a decodable book, than learning how to look at a picture and guess the word in a predictable/repetitive text.  As I have researched and helped my dyslexic son how to read, we use decodable books in a systematic fashion. His reading skills have greatly improved as we have instituted explicit and systematic instruction.

England has shown huge growth in reading achievement as they have mandated synthetic phonics and funded decodable books.  The 2016 PIRLS results show that 154,000 more 6-year-olds are on track to become fluent readers than in 2012. Additionally, these results show that England's 9-year-olds are significantly better readers than their American, Australian, and Canadian counterparts. (Read more here.)

I was convinced that decodable books were the way to go, so I headed to Teachers Pay Teachers and purchased a set.  As I tried to implement these books, I instantly became discouraged.  There was no sequence of skills!  Each book had a random amount of letter sounds/digraphs/blends in them.  I didn't just want a decodable book, I needed a controlled decodable book.  I wanted my students, who only knew the sounds m, a, s, p, and t to still be able to read! I needed a series that progressed from simple to more challenging. I didn't want random vowel digraphs thrown in that I hadn't introduced yet. I realized I needed to look for a better choice.

I looked into the "I See Sam" books and learned that they have a good progression of skills. These are available for free online and are a solid choice.  However, I have often heard complaints from teachers that decodable books are boring and lifeless. So I decided I wanted to find decodable books with more engaging stories and vivid pictures.  I wanted my students to hold an actual book in their hands...and not something black and white that I had printed. I knew I wanted to look for a different option.

That's when I discovered these gems: Flyleaf Publishing Books and Half-Pint Readers. I began pouring and salivating over their websites.  The books are progressive....they start with very simple, basic phonics knowledge and then gradually introduce more advanced phonics skills.  Students can practice decoding skills in incremental levels as I introduce new letters and sounds.  The illustrations are beautiful and the stories are meaningful and engaging. I knew these books would be perfect! I began writing some Donor's Choose grants and within about 3 months I had them!

My students have been using these books for about 5 months now and they LOVE them!  We laugh over the story lines and admire the pictures.  We discuss comprehension questions after each reading session. Students are becoming so skilled at blending the words and are so proud of themselves when they successfully read a book.  You can see in this video, how every student is engaged and actively reading.  We love small group reading time!

Even my lowest students are learning to read so beautifully and I attribute it to all the blending/decoding practice they are getting through these decodables.  A couple weeks ago, one boy shouted, "Mrs. Kemeny!  I AM ACTUALLY READING THE WORDS!!!!"  His joy and excitement were overflowing. He felt so much confidence and success. In no way was he bored with the decodable books.  In no way was he overwhelmed or feeling enormous pressure.  I highly suspect this student has dyslexia, but I never thought he might not be ready because he WAS ready.  He just needed to be shown the way.  My advanced students excel with these books as well.  With them, I can introduce vowel digraphs and more challenging phonics skills and then they can put those new skills into practice right away. No guessing needed.

It's hard to choose a favorite between the two series...I love them both for many different reasons. The pictures in Half-Pint Readers are darling and a little more cartoon-like.  They are organized by theme, which is really fun.  There are 18 total themes and each theme contains 6 books. Themes range from "At the Beach" to "Community Helpers" and everything in between. Here are some pictures of some of their very beginning books (Level A).  This is the 3rd book in the first theme, "Forest Fun":

One of my favorite things about these books are the comprehension questions at the end!  I always struggle to come up with good questions and often feel like a deer caught in headlights when I need to. -So I absolutely LOVE this feature of the books. There is always a good balance of literal questions and those that require them to infer and think more deeply.  Here's what a comprehension page looks like:

 And here's a book from their B Level...a little more challenging than the previous book.  This is one of our favorite themes, "Outer Space"

My only complaint with Half-Pint Readers is that there are not more of them!  I wish they went to a higher level and that is the only downside as compared to the Flyleaf books.  Here is one of the higher Half-Pint levels (Level C):

Let's move on to the Flyleaf Publishing books.  Here is one of their beginning books that my kinders just love:

This book is fun because we talk about what the exclamation point means and practice saying the words how the cats would really say them. They always think it's funny when I show them how we'd read the words if there was a period instead (I'm pretty dramatic about it).

The illustrations in the Flyleaf books are so beautiful and more realistic than the Half-Pint Readers. Here's some more pictures:

There's nothing boring about these books! The back of each book shows the targeted skill and the difficulty level:

As mentioned earlier, these books go up to more difficult levels than the Half-Pint Readers.  They have their emergent level and then they have levels 1-3.  This is a book from level 2:

If you teach beginning readers, I can't emphasize enough how beneficial decodable books are!  Run far away from those predictable, repetitive text. We don't want our most vulnerable readers learning the bad habit of guessing.  Decodable books will help them make the connection between letters, sounds, and words.  Their phonics skills will become solidified and automatic and illiteracy will stay far, far away. Best of all, these decodable books help them build confidence and feel success!

Look how each of these students are fully engaged and on task! That's the power of decodable books!


For more tips on how to use decodable books in your classroom, please see this article.