Decodable books - What makes decodable readers different than other books?

What is a decodable book?

A decodable book or passage is different from other books in that it follows a progression of learned phonics concepts. Decodable books are used by beginning readers to well-establish learned reading concepts, and sequentially build one phonics concept upon another.

For instance, a child who has only learned words with short letter "a" would practice a book having words like "cat", "sat", or "mat". She would not yet be expected to read books containing words with other concepts like digraphs ("she" "chat", or "what"). Only after the concept of digraphs has been specifically taught would a book with those words be introduced.

There is another term for beginning readers used by many schools called "leveled books", and these are books based on a standard leveling system ordering books by grade, and level of difficulty. This can be based upon vocabulary, subject matter, sentence structure, etc.

A child might encounter many words in a "leveled" book that could contain phonetic concepts that have not been explicitly taught yet.

There has long been a question of whether or not children should learn to read from "leveled" books, or "decodable" books.

Although it is not harmful to have leveled books in your library for engagement, and read alouds, decodable books should definitely be in your plan if you are teaching a beginner. 

The truth is - readers who understand how to decode words using phonics concepts become better, stronger readers. Some children can move forward quickly into leveled readers for more engaging and fun material, but ALL kids need to solidify phonemic awareness, and phonics skills to advance in a well-grounded way.

I like to think of it like this. Some kids catch on to math very quickly, and can even understand broad algebraic concepts at a young age. But - that doesn't mean they don't need to understand the basic building blocks of math in order to progress further. At some point, you always need to understand the basics of what you are learning in order to advance. 

And so, decodables are a great way to go when teaching your child to read. In addition to using decodables, teachers and parents should read aloud higher level books of all kinds to develop and foster a rich vocabulary and a love for reading.

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