Unik Edu Solution

Decodable books are books used in the early stages of teaching children to read with phonics. These books contain text that beginning readers can decipher using the phonics skills they have already learnt.

A child at the first stage of reading, for instance, would have learnt the sounds of s, a, t and p, and would be able to decode simple words like as, at, pat, pap, tap, sap, sat and spat. However, he would not be able to decode words with letters for which the sounds have not been taught to him. If he has not been taught the sound of g, for example, he would not be able to decode gas, even though as is decodable at his current skill level. Once he has learnt the sound /g/, and that it is written as g, words such as gas, gap, tag and stag are fully decodable at his new skill level.

Decodable books enable children to successfully apply their phonics skills; this encourages them to read words by blending sounds, rather than by guessing words from pictures or context.

A good decodable book should contain words that the child can decode at his proficiency level.

When a child reads a fully decodable book, he successfully applies his phonics skill to decode unfamiliar words. The child feels a sense of accomplishment when he is able to read all the words that he comes across. If he does not have to struggle to read, he can begin to enjoy reading. This leads to good reading strategies in the long run.

However, when a child tries to read text he cannot decode, he becomes frustrated and starts to guess what the words might be, rather than read them. Poor reading strategies develop from this bad habit as a result. In the process, the child loses the interest to read.

It must be remembered that decodable books are used for only a short time to help children develop good decoding skills. Once these skills are acquired, they progress to reading rich and varied children’s literature available to them, enriching themselves with knowledge along the way. Decodable books facilitate this growth.

Many common (‘high frequency’) English words are not decodable by children in the early stages of learning to read. This presents a problem to the children if they come across such words. For example, a child who has not learnt the sound for th, or does not know that the letter e can be a schwa (/e/), will not be able to decode the word the. Yet, it is the most common word used in English. Beginning readers must therefore learn to recognize the and be able to read it by sight, since they are likely to come across the word even before they have learned to decode it.

Then, there are words that just do not follow phonics “rules”. Compare, for example, these words:

are     bare     care     dare     fare

The word are does not follow the same rules used for ‘-are’ in the other words. Trying to decode are using phonics rules will lead to the wrong pronunciation of that word. Because of this, we say that are is a tricky word. Beginning readers need to read tricky words by sight (sight words) and not try to decode them using phonics “rules”.

Click to get the list of 100 high-frequency words.

In Phonics Fun, a systematic approach is taken to teach sounds and their corresponding symbols. Using direct and explicit instruction, Phonics Fun teaches children blending and segmenting skills. Children are first taught reading skills through decoding of words, and then reading and spelling skills with the exercises provided. Each topic in Phonics Fun teaches children specific sounds, as well as the letters that represent those sounds. Children can then apply the skills learnt in each topic by reading the corresponding Decodable Book.

For example, Phonics Fun, Topic 8 teaches the sounds /ʃ/, /ʧ/, /θ/, /ð/, /ŋ/ (the sounds for sh, ch, th, ng). After completing the lesson and exercises in Phonics Fun, Topic 8, children can continue with Decodable Book 8: The Picnic, where words with the graphemes sh, ch, th and ng (as well as some previously learnt graphemes) are used in the story. Thus, children can immediately apply what they have learnt to read meaningful text.

The audio section (in the CD), available with each Decodable Book, helps teachers/parents with teaching children the pronunciation of words, and provides guidance to the children should they wish to learn on their own.

These creative works were designed to be decodable for students who know all five short vowels and common consonant digraphs. The authors restricted content to one-syllable words with short vowels, where consonant digraphs and consonant clusters are decodable for readers. They also used the 50 most common words in English, mostly function words needed to read any text, like the, a, of, is, to, etc. However, no irregular words like friend or sword were used in the making of these books. Clicking on a link will download a PDF of the book.