Teaching with Decodable Text: A Step-by-Step Guide

The most important thing to remember when teaching with decodable text is the books you choose will determine your students’ success. It’s important that the books are in line with students’ phonics needs. You want to choose a decodable book level that spotlights the phonics skill you are currently teaching. There should also be a mix of high-frequency words and words that contain elements that have been previously taught.

Once you have selected a decodable book, it’s important to scaffold the lesson so that students are familiar with the targeted phonics skill and prepared for a successful read. Not only will this make the reading process more dynamic for students, it will also help to maximize their learning. Here are some great tips for teaching with decodable text:

Introduce the Skill Prior to Reading

Before introducing the decodable book, explicitly teach the target phonics skill.

• Create a balance between encoding and decoding instruction in your lesson.
• Teach sound-letter correspondences.
• Use blending and segmenting activities that contain the target phonics skill to strengthen phonemic awareness.
• Choose a multisensory phonics activity that bridges the phoneme to the grapheme.
• Read some of the words in the book that contain the phonic element in isolation prior to reading the decodable book.

Prepare Students for Reading

When teaching with decodable text, you want to set your students up for reading success. A strong book introduction will help get students ready for reading and leans into comprehension.

• Explicitly model the phoneme-grapheme mapping of sight words in the decodable text.
• Introduce the book by giving students a brief synopsis, and then have them preview the book to help build schema for comprehension.
• Have students locate a few decodable words in the book that contain the phonic element being explicitly taught. Have them frame the letters that spell the sound(s) in the word. Then have them read the word.

Support Students as They Read

As students begin to read the decodable book, provide a supportive environment for them.

• As students read the book, listen in and offer corrective feedback.
• Ask both closed- and open-ended questions about what they read to support comprehension.

Reinforce the Transfer to Text

After students finish reading, it’s important to reinforce the learning, specifically the transfer of the phonic element being taught to continuous text.

• Ask students to go through the book and locate and reread words that contain the phonic element.
• Ask students to write some of the decodable words in isolation.
• Dictate a sentence for students that contains words with the phonic element and highlighted high-frequency words.

Set Aside a Time for Students to Reread the Book

Rereading is an important element in any literacy program. Rereading builds fluency, provides multiple exposures to words containing the target phonic element, and helps solidify the transfer of the phonic element being taught to continuous text.

• Have students reread the book independently during independent reading time.
• During literacy centers, have students reread the book to each other in partnerships.
• Have students take home the decodable text to read to a friend or family member.

Teaching with decodable text can be a powerful way to bolster your phonics curriculum and give students opportunities to solidify skills through transfer to reading and writing. Establishing a lesson around the decodable text is the best way to set your students up for success.

For high-quality decodable text examples, the Phonics Storybooks collection from Pioneer Valley Books, is an invaluable resource for educators and learners alike. These beautifully illustrated texts have been thoughtfully designed to align with a comprehensive phonics scope and sequence. Within these books, readers are presented with numerous opportunities to apply their newly acquired phonics skills in real reading situations, fostering a deeper understanding of the language. Phonics Storybooks are available for purchase through the Pioneer Valley Books website, or you can start reading them today on the Digital Reader. If you don’t have a Digital Reader subscription, you can sign up for a two-week free trial, granting you full access to all Phonics Storybooks.