Decodable readers are a great way to help beginning readers put their phonics skills into practice. With simple, targeted text, students can practice decoding words, build fluency, and gain confidence as readers.
In this post, I’ll share easy and effective ways to use decodable readers in your first grade classroom.
I’ve used my short vowel decodable readers in reading groups, with reading volunteers, and I send them home with students as well. The kids love the funny characters and simple text. The “words to know” section is a great warmup for kids so they can feel success as they read these fun and simple books!
I also have some decodable short vowel passages that we use for continued practice in groups. I also use these short vowel word list for students who need more work at the word level.
A 4-Day Decodable Reader Schedule
Here’s a look at how I use one of my short vowel decodable readers over four days with my emergent readers during small-group reading instruction. Our fifth day is usually reserved for our progress monitoring assessments.
Day 1-Introduce the decodable book and work through it together
- I introduce the book. We look at the title and discuss the focus sound that we will be working on. (Before working in our book, we’ve already done phonemic awareness and/or phonics activities with our focus sound to “warm us up”.)
- We open up to page 1 and read the “Words to Know” (high frequency words) and the “Short ‘a’ Words”. Depending on the group and how much support they need, we sometimes highlight the medial vowel from the short vowel words list.
- Then, we chorale read the text, pointing at the words and working on blending together, if needed. After that, we chorale read together one more time.
Day 2-Review the decodable book and students read independently
- We review the “Words to Know” and “Short ‘a’ Words” lists on page 1.
- For the first read, we read the text together.
- The second read today is usually a whisper read that they do on their own and I listen in, assisting or correcting, as needed. If they finish while I’m still working with others, they read it again.
- After everyone has read through once or twice, we turn to the “Check for Understanding” page at the back. We work on answering the comprehension questions together and finding the evidence in the text.
- If students master this text, I move on to another decodable with the same vowel focus.
Day 3-Partner Reading
- We review page 1 (words to know, short a words).
- Then, I have the kids partner read. We have a few ways we partner read. They can echo read where one partner reads a page and then the other partner reads the same page as an “echo”. Our other partner reading routine is taking turns, where they alternate who reads on each page. If time, they switch up who started, so they’ve both had a chance to read all pages.
👉🏽 Here are some other fun and engaging fluency activities and easy phonics activities for Kindergarten and 1st Grade Classrooms!
Day 4-Accuracy check, dictation words or sentences, take the book home
- Students read the book quietly and I listen in to check for fluency and accuracy.
- Today, we use their whiteboards for some dictation words or sentences using words from the book.
- I send the book home on this day and their “homework” is to read the book to someone at home and have that person “quiz” them with the comprehension questions. Then, they add it to their home library.
And, that’s our week of decodable reading! My students LOVE these books because they’re inviting and they can feel success with them! I have two books for each short vowel. The books shown in this post come from my Short Vowels Decodable Readers Bundle.
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Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Teaching!
Jennifer ~ Practical Primary Teacher 🍎🍏
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