About Dog on a Log Books

Why Decodable Books

If you wanted your child to learn to play piano, you would not hand them the sheet music for Etudes-tableaux, Op. 39: No. 1 in C Minor, Allegro agitato and tell them, “Here, play this.” You would start by going to preschool music groups where they would clap to the beat of simple songs and twirl with scarves to happy music. As they got older, you’d show them how to place their fingers on a piano’s keyboard. You would give them simple songs with only two or three notes. Then you’d build up to Chopsticks and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. With time and practice you would have them play more and more complicated songs. From the very beginning you would immerse them in music by playing music in the car or while cleaning the house. You might have picnics at Music Under the Stars by the local pops orchestra or city symphony. You might even start singing while walking down the frozen foods aisle at the grocery store.

There are some kids who could sit at a piano and play Fur Elise without much difficulty, but those children are the exception. Most kids just don’t learn that way.

Reading is the same. Some kids will do well if you simply read to them. It seems as if by osmosis they learn to read. However, most kids are not like that. They learn best when they start playing games to learn about rhymes, letter sounds, syllables, and words. Then they are taught a few letters and sounds and helped to sound-out short words using these combinations. As they learn the connections between speech sounds and print, they are ready for books with words that have those letters and those sounds.

Decodable books are books that follow the rules. They can be sounded-out by anyone who has been taught the sounds and letters that are used in that book. Systematic, sequential decodable books are a series of books that add a few more sound-letter correspondences in each subsequent book, or group of books, of that series.

Of course, kids need to be immersed in books from the time they are infants. They need parents who read language-rich books with interesting characters that take them on amazing adventures. Children need library story time and books filled with pictures where they can imagine the stories even before they can read the words. Many kids love audio books that have paper books where they can follow along with the words as they listen to the book.

In time, children will no longer need to read decodable books. They will have gained the skills to read books that do not attempt to control spelling patterns. They will simply read what is in front of them and have the skills to master new words. And that is the goal of decodable books: to help new readers and children with dyslexia master printed words and become fluent readers. They are a tool for learning to read that will eventually become a fond memory.

Different individuals learn at different rates. This article discusses the author’s experience with students and how long each group of kids seemed to need decodable books. Some only needed them in the very earliest phases of learning to read, others needed them for extended periods of time.

Using Decodable Books

Here is a quick overview of how to teach reading with explicit, systematic phonics using decodable books. Click on the bar beneath to download it. For more detailed information, you may wish to read “How to Use Decodable Books to Teach Reading.”

Decodable books, also called “sound-out books,” are written to teach and reinforce phonics rules. They generally include a few high frequency words that help the story make sense. High frequency words are common words that must be memorized because they cannot be sounded out. This could either be because they do not follow phonics rules (of, the) or because the phonics in the words have not been taught yet (and, like, he, for.) This last group will be decodable eventually, but only once the student has been explicitly taught more phonics rules.

1. Make sure your student knows the essential, foundational skills of phonological awareness. This means they can play with the sounds in the words they hear. They can rhyme, separate words into syllables, and they can blend and separate the sounds in words with three sounds, such as “cat.”
2. Choose a systematic series of decodable books that align with the phonics progression (Scope and Sequence) that you will be using with your students. Or, choose a systematic, cumulative series of decodable books and plan to teach your students using the series’ outlined phonics sequence.
3. If you are just introducing letters for the very first time, teach a small number of letters. Six is a good number, such as the letters a, s, m, f, t, n. Once they’ve learned each letter’s name, its keyword, and the sound it makes, teach them how to blend the sounds of the letters into words. (Some decodable books will start with a list of words. You can use those books or give your students handouts with words.) Keep the pictures of the keyword images/letters on the wall or in a binder for their use. If a student forgets the sound of a letter(s,) have them look at the keyword picture as a reminder.
4. Teach them one or two high frequency words. Have them read a sentence or two on a handout or a decodable book. (With just six letters, you may not find a book that has a decodable story AND sentences.) Now, introduce them to their first story in a decodable book. Make sure that it uses just the letters and high frequency words you’ve explicitly taught.
5. Teach you students another group of letters and have them practice as above. Repeat the process of instruction, practice, mastery.
6. Once they’ve mastered reading books with just the 5 short vowel sounds and 21 primary consonant sounds in “vc” and “cvc” words, begin teaching them the next phonics rule in your sequence. Provide them decodable handouts and/or a decodable book with just the letters and phonics they’ve been explicitly taught.
7. Add in another phonics rule and let them read decodable content. Continue the process of explicit instruction, practice, decodable books for more practice, mastery, and new concepts.
8. In general, it is best NOT to focus on comprehension with decodable books as, for many students, it is too hard to practice decoding AND comprehend what they are reading. The purpose of decodable books is to practice and build phonics skills. Early comprehension skills are best taught with read alouds.
9. Once phonics skills are mastered, students are ready to move into more “authentic text.” Some students will be ready by the middle of first grade, whereas others could take until third grade (or longer for students with dyslexia.)
10. If students are having difficulty mastering phonological awareness and systematic phonics, they may have a reading disability such as dyslexia. They should be referred to a trained specialist for assessment and possible further individualized instruction using an explicit, systematic phonics program.

How DOG ON A LOG Books Came To Be

My daughter has a dyslexic learning style. Like all the families I know who have kids with dyslexia, I had a terrible time finding books for her to read. Sure, once she learns sounds like er or ea or ow there might be some high-low books out there that she will be able to read. But we’re a long way away from that. Just before I started writing my DOG ON A LOG Books, she’d advanced to the equivalent of my Step 2 books. We needed Orton Gillingham based books that were long enough for an 8 year old but with very limited phonics and even more limited high frequency words. Most of the beginning phonics books I was ordering had words like Wednesday, cheerful, and change. My daughter had enough trouble reading the and fox, there was no way she was going to be able to deal with a beginning phonics book that contained the word leaves.

I spent hours every night combing the internet in search of appropriate books for her that I hoped I just hadn’t discovered yet. I went to our local library and even brick and mortar stores (I hate going to stores, but I did it for Janelle.) I wasn’t having much luck. I finally decided to bite the bullet and spend $50 for a set of 10 books even though I knew at least half of them were beyond her abilities at the time. Since the website didn’t include what phonics were used in the books, I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to read any of them. I was afraid I’d be wasting yet more money on books she could not read. I was heading home from the grocery store (so was feeling particularly cash-strapped) when I thought, “Wait a minute. I’m a writer. I’ll write books for her.”

I went home and wrote my first Orton-Gillingham based book. I wrote The Red Hen. My daughter was so excited to read it, especially when she saw her name in it. Then I wrote Mud On The Path. That’s when she first commented that there were no pictures in my books. I can’t draw so there wasn’t much I could do about that. I had photos of our chickens that I could insert into The Red Hen, but I wasn’t willing to go sit in a forest waiting to take a picture of a passing bear with her cub. As my daughter kept reading the book (it took her several days,) she kept complaining that there were no pictures. I wrote The Hat And Bug Shop.  I needed her to read it. She was doing so well reading my books and I didn’t know how I’d replace them if she refused to read any more. So I went online and found pictures that I downloaded and inserted into the text. We were driving to the babysitter’s. Our babysitter happens to be a special education teacher so they always read together. From the backseat, my daughter said, “I am not going to read any of your books. They don’t have pictures so I won’t read them.” I handed her the computer printout of The Hat And Bug Shop and told her to look inside. She opened it and saw pictures. She hasn’t complained about my books since. (Well, there are times she doesn’t want to read because reading is hard, but that has nothing to do with my books.)

I’ve always been an altruistic person. Now that I was writing books for my daughter with dyslexia and had an endless source of Orton Gillingham books, I wanted to share them with other families. A Dyslexia Specialist said I would be able to sell my books to an OG company. However, I knew just how expensive they would make them. I feared that would mean a lot of families wouldn’t be able to afford them. Since I had independently published a couple books before, I decided to use those skills to publish the DOG ON A LOG Books.