Phonics-based books are an excellent way to help beginner readers understand the relationship between graphemes and phonemes, as they allow them to segment and blend letters and words naturally. Acquiring this skill is essential for a child’s reading success. Kids don’t need to follow cues or pictures to guess the words. Instead, they employ decoding strategies to read each letter and word from left to right.
Whether you are a parent or teacher, allowing your student to practise their reading using phonic based books with decodable texts will help them understand letter-sound relationships to read unfamiliar words. This specific practice builds their reading reflex and makes them successful, independent readers as well. Read on to find out why decodable texts should form an essential part of your child’s reading journey.
Why you should use decodable books
Decodable texts give first-level phonics readers the opportunity to use their phonics skills to read stories with words that primarily consist of letter-sound patterns. They can do this by following simple word structures, vowel-consonant and consonant-vowel-consonant, before moving to complex ones. However, teachers and parents must recognise that not all learners have the same ability. Some children may grasp the sequences early on, while others may need more time to become fluent. This is why it is essential to establish the alphabetic principle in children. This knowledge will enable them to apply their phonics knowledge to decode even unfamiliar words.
Books with decodable texts help children gain confidence in their reading skills. Authors are often able to eliminate or at least minimise high-frequency words and grapheme-phoneme correspondences in their material to ensure children use their phonics skills when learning to read. You will find that there are also many sequential books on the market, which are an excellent way to develop children’s phonics knowledge step by step by introducing grapheme and phoneme concepts gradually and keeping young readers engaged.
Decodable texts v. predictable texts
First of all, you need to understand the basics of developing a child’s reading skills when looking for beginner reading materials. Some educators may recommend introducing early learners to repetitive or predictable texts that are based on the cueing system approach to reading, whilst others favour books with decodable texts. Experts, however, believe predictable materials may not work with at-risk or weak readers. They believe that such books encourage readers to use contextual guessing to understand the words on a page, some of which can be complex and may contain unfamiliar grapheme–phoneme correspondences.
On the contrary, decodable texts guide learners through single letters and their corresponding sounds. For example, consider the word ‘bat’ and its single-letter grapheme–phoneme correspondences: b-a-t. Predictable texts, on the other hand, often focus on complex digraphs such as ‘ck,’ ‘wh,’ and others.
Nevertheless, it is important to know that some words in both types of texts can be difficult for early readers to decode. Examples include words like the, was, and said. However, decodable books contain fewer of these words so that kids don’t rely on guessing strategies.
How to select decodable texts
When it comes to teaching your children or students grapheme-phoneme correspondences through decodable books, you must ensure that the instructions in the series are clear and satisfy your teaching goals. The book should be comprehensive about the use of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC). Texts should include proper punctuation marks and grammar. Initial texts can have one sentence per page to make it easier for learners to absorb the material. If you buy your books from a trusted provider, you will not have to worry about these factors, though.
Finally
Sowing the seeds of independent reading from the beginning should be the goal of any successful literacy programme. Decodable texts are the first step on a child’s journey to becoming a strong, independent reader. Of course, some learners will progress faster than others, so whether you are a teacher, childminder, or parent, you must get to know and recognise your learner’s ability and plan their exposure to these instructions accordingly.
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