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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Scarborough’s Reading Rope is a wonderful theoretical framework for describing the complexity of reading and what we need to teach children in order to become fluent readers who can comprehend a text successfully. Decoding is on one branch of the rope, and language comprehension is on the other branch. These become increasingly intertwined as children […]
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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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Supporting structured linguistic literacy at home with games and decodable reading books – 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 […]
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Many teachers are now using decodable books to help their beginner readers practice the phonics taught in the classroom lessons. This is because it is now accepted that decodable texts, which are controlled texts, help children develop decoding, and decoding ability is an essential skill for learning to read. It is important that the books […]
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Beginner readers need a great deal of practice. Where possible, sending home decodable books is an important opportunity for reading practice. It is difficult for the teacher or teaching assistant to hear every child read every day or even every week. So, an adult reading at home with the child has a very significant role […]
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Decodable books have a very specific and limited purpose in the process of learning to read. They provide reading practice as children learn to use the sound/letter correspondences they have been taught, and the strategy of blending sounds throughout the word. As their code knowledge grows, children will be able it to apply this to […]
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On many occasions, especially at conferences, teachers have said to us, “You have gone ahead and done what I always dreamed of doing!” They describe how every lesson they write decodable stories for their pupils and thought what a good idea it would be to actually publish them! Well, that is how Phonic Books got […]
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