Predictable vs. Decodable Text

I have a first grader too. He’s reading at the second grade level (probably because that’s the way his brian is wired and because I slip in a little PG whenever he lets me).

He goes to public school in a county that prides itself on high academic achievement and he has a very experienced and skilled teacher. They call what they do “balanced literacy.” From what I can tell it’s just whole language with a little bit of basic decoding thrown in. I am convinced that they instruct the children to study the pictures before they read a page and to guess when they don’t know the word. I see bad habits developing before my eyes.

I spend a lot of time reading with my son and trying to counteract these methods!

Wouldn’t hurt. For a cheap alternative, go to the Project Read website, might be found by searching for “Language Circle,” and order the Bonnie Kline readers. These are in two volumes, last time I looked, and they are on blackline master. They are totally decodable and provide multiple stories for each unit in this O-G based reading curriculum.

I have the Bonnie Klein readers and they are kind of boring but they are organized with the OG curriculum…

I like the decodable text myself…it is building the auditory memory and reinforcing some patterns as they read them. Kind of like nursery rhymes and old fashioned street rhymes that I like things like Ms. Mary Mack.. The kids like them too…

Janis,
I am glad you posted this question. My dyslexic daughter brings home only the easy readers. When I requested the phonic based readers there are none to send. Our school also uses “Balanced literacy” which is mostly whole langauge. Even the resource teacher who does Explode the Code with my daughter, sends the easy readers. They don’t have the phonic readers. Thank God for public libraries. She reads with the phonic readers, the other ones she knows the basic sentence and guesses at the different word. She is also in the first grade.

Hi, Star,

I just see my child guessing unfamiliar words when she is not forced to decode them. That seems to promote bad habits. I will have to say that is pretty bad if the resource teacher does not have decodable books to use with Explode the Code…goodness!

My child’s primary problem seems to be comprehension, but I want to be sure she strengthens decoding before she gets to longer words which have to be decoded. I have a feeling her school is using Saxon phonics (which is good) along with Balanced Literacy, too.

I’ll have to check our library for more decodable books, too. Thanks for the suggestion!

Janis

Indeed, most decodable text is boring as all get out in the early stages while the child is working with just a handful of patterns and sight words.

I am beginning to believe that many of the students I get really need these early on. When they are reading primarily CVC words plus 2-5 “red words” they are really forced to attend to each letter in each word, they can’t get away with looking at the first letter and guessing.

The number of older students I get who are downright sloppy, who don’t read all the way across words, who guess at the middles……! Good readers absolutely do process every letter of ever word. I tell my students this and then show them word pairs like: horse and house, and others. This gets the point across.

So much for my pitch for reading boring decodable text!

Janis,
It is so funny, the timing of your post. I am meeting with her reading resource teaher tomorrow. I have seen the guessing at the words getting out of control with my daughter,her eyes are everywhere but the word. The crime of it is that she also receives 1:1 pure O-G twice a week, and I can see this guessing interfering with the O-G instruction. She has the skills (from O-G) to decode the words, but being told to guess doesn’t give her the chance to use them. She is always searching the picture for the word, what sense is that?
My suggestion to the teacher about the phonic readers will be to ask our Education Foundation to donate them. All the teacher has to do is ask, I know they will be happy to give them.

You might want to check out www.funphonics.com

They have a wonderful series of decodable books for under $50 a set.

BE

Thank you BE, I have been looking for a place to get a set of books!

Thanks, I’ll check those out, BE.

Star, another source of decodable books that someone mentioned on a reading list is called the Bob books.

http://www.bobbooks.com/bobbooks.htm#levelb

(Buy from Amazon, though, costs less).

Janis