Using Decodable Texts to Help Us Grow as Readers

During our phonics group, we have been using decodable texts to help us strengthen our decoding skills and build our reading fluency. Decodable texts are books where students can use their knowledge of letter sounds to sound out unknown words. Most of the words in the text are words that students can decode or sound out.

Prior to reading the book, we work on previewing some of the words we will read in the text by sounding out words and writing them on our dry erase boards. This allows students to learn a little bit about what the story will be about and to practice using their letter sound knowledge to accurately spell words. After we have the words we are previewing written on our dry erase boards, we look for similarities between some of the words (example: words that rhyme). During this time, we also review sight words we will see in the text.

After we have previewed some of the words in our text, we work on using our knowledge of letter sounds and sight words to read the story. There are different ways that we like to read our text. We can choral read the book as a group. This is where we are reading the text out loud together. We can read the story with a partner and help coach one another if we come to a word we are having trouble decoding. We also work on reading the text independently. With one text, we work on reading it several times. These repeated readings help the students to build their reading fluency with the text.

After reading the decodable text several times, we spend time talking about the story. We think about the characters in the story, where the story takes place, and what happens to the characters in the story. As a reader, not only do we want to be able to read the words in the text, but we also need to understand what is happening in the story.