Decodable Readers - Your Questions Answered
Hundreds of TFE members tuned into the NSW Branch Decodable Readers talk with SPELD NSW in 2021. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can catch up here. While many member questions were answered in the session, we couldn’t get to all of them!
Enjoy this blog of questions answered about decodable readers. If you have more questions feel free to add a comment to this blog post.
SPELD NSW Responses to Think Forward Educators Webinar Questions
Q. What is the role of phonological awareness in reading decodable texts?
Decodable readers support the development of PA skills because they provide explicit practice of the taught phonic code. Using texts that reinforce phoneme to grapheme correspondences in a systemic manner allow students to develop this fundamental reading skill.
Q. What has been the response from the parent community?
The parent and carer community need to be supported through this change process so they can best support their children at home. Many parents have been very excited to see their previously struggling readers start to engage more positively with the books!
Q. How do I support parents with using decodables?
Provide parents with clear strategies to use at home. Check out our decoding bookmarks to help parents reinforce blending strategies at home.
Q. Recommendations for free decodables?
There are some options here: https://www.speldnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Decodable-Readers-October-2021.pdf
Q. Recommendations for decodables with Indigenous characters.
SPELD SA have some lovely new phonic books with Indigenous characters.
Q. Are decodables used to teach through whole class instruction or in small groups as traditional guided reading groups are done?
Decodables are a tool for children to practise the explicit phonics and blending strategies that we have taught them. We teach the phonics through whole class instruction, and then provide children with many opportunities to practice at the word, sentence, and text level. The books can be read to a partner, to a teacher or in a small group. The key is that children get explicit instruction before they read the text not at the point of reading the text for the first time.
Q. What is the best way to support students with vowel sounds?
Students can experience vowel confusion because of the nature of how vowels are produced in the mouth. Start by using contrasting vowels e.g. o and I and help children attend to not just what the vowel sound like, but the shape of their mouth and the feeling of that vowel as they say them. Then gradually move toward vowels that are less contrasting such as ‘’e’ and ‘a’.
Lots of practice and reinforcement may be needed.
Seek advice from a Speech Pathologist if errors are enduring.
Q. How do we approach the gap between students in older grades who have not been taught full explicit code with students coming through with code knowledge?
There are some great programs and resources available for this age group. Please check out our Catch-up and intervention page: Intervention and Catchup Resources - SPELD NSW Online Store
You will need to assess where their knowledge gaps are in terms of the phonic code and then explicit teach to those areas of need.
Q. What is the best way to help students who know single sounds but are struggling with blending and later fluently reading words?
Check out our blending strategies bookmarks. We also demonstrated how to do additive and continuous phonation in the webinar.
Q. For students who are working on the extended code, is it okay to supplement their reading with other texts in addition to the decodables being used in the classroom?
Of course! We want children reading widely. Note that they may require key support around complex vocabulary and words that are morphologically complex. Keep ensuring that the students are applying their segmenting and blending skills and not reverting to any guessing strategies.
Q. Why do some students get stuck when moving from reading texts with cvc words to texts with ccvc/cvcc words and how can you help them improve and move with the taught sequence of sounds?
One of the key hurdles can be working memory. To move from CVC to longer letter strings can be a challenge for some! Using words that start with continuant consonants, such as slip, slum etc can be helpful when learning how to attack these longer words.
Additive blending is very helpful for these longer letter strings.
Q. I have students who can decode brilliantly and are reading fluently but they are not comprehending what they are reading. How can teachers resolve this?
The first thing to check is their actual decoding skills, using a non-word assessment such as motif. Young readers can be effective at appearing to be reading rather fluently, but are not necessarily engaging with the orthography and therefore not actually reading. This impacts their comprehension but more importantly will mean they may struggle when texts become more complex in upper grades.
If they are effective at reading non-words and their fluency is assessed using something like Dibels, then there may be a language issue at play. Vocabulary and background knowledge are key factors in determining our ability to comprehend written text.
Q. How can decodable texts be used effectively with our peer tutoring program where year 6/5 students read with younger students?
Teach your Year 5/6 children how to use the effective blending strategies, using our blending bookmarks, and then encourage them to support the younger readers using those key approaches. So when the younger readers are stuck on a word, their older peers can help them sound out and blend the words effectively rather than resorting to any guess-work. Also ask them to talk about the text- ask questions and show enthusiasm for talking about the story!
Q. My school uses the Ron Yoshimoto MSLOG synthetic phonics program F to Year 6 and the Little Learners Love Literacy decodable texts in Foundation & Year 1. I have been 'marrying' the two together to try and get the best of both worlds seeing most kids are working with the extended code. Do you think this is the best approach or should I just be sticking with the decodable texts scope and sequence?
The most important thing to have is a scope and sequence. It doesn’t matter if you combine one based on two resources, but having that documented will make everyone’s life much easier! Then you can focus on teaching systematically in line with that sequence.
Q. What comprehension assessments would you use?
Fluency measures give a strong indication of reading development including comprehension. Focus on ensuring that all the key reading skills (decoding, blending, automatic word reading, fluency, vocabulary….) are developing. Remember that reading comprehension is an outcome of these skills working effectively.
Veronica Alexander and Georgina Perry from SPELD NSW presented this research-based and practical session for the NSW Branch, to help you understand how decodables texts are designed to support evidence-based literacy instruction and how best to use them as part your classroom instruction.
Catch up on the original webinar here
Exclusive to NSW members, with special guest Prof Pamela Snow!! Come along to this informal meeting to continue the conversations within our networks. In light of the changes to NSW English Syllabus, we invite you to have a read of the following two articles from Pamela Snow ahead of the meeting.