Because success is an incredible motivator. 2) Give them texts where, to a significant degree, the taught phonics works for figuring out the words. We can teach kids to rely on their phonics knowledge by doing two things: 1) Teach them phonics, explicitly and systematically. The best strategy to rely on is not guessing, hunting in the illustrations, or memorizing word shapes. This makes them great for helping beginning readers trust that the best way forward in reading is using sounding-out strategies. But here’s why I think these decodable texts are critical at the very beginning of learning to decode, even if they are a little boring: they set kids up to succeed as they apply the phonics they are learning. We would prefer books that are decodable but interesting. While Hats! is an extreme example of this “no good” category, it’s not hard to find books for earliest readers that have this same profile. Hats!, then, is no good for developing language, comprehension skills, or knowledge. The language is far simpler than what kids hear in everyday conversations, too. You often see this most starkly in the decodable books targeted to very beginning phonics. Notice also that the meaning is pretty pointless. This makes this kind of text decodable for a child who has been taught only the first smidges of phonics. If beginning readers try the most frequent sound for a letter as they try to read a word, they will be successful with this text. Filler words (“is,” “in,” his, “has”) are carefully chosen to stick with simple, short-vowel-sound spellings. Notice that the fake text hits really hard on the short A vowel sound, and it repeatedly uses words with either the -AT ending or the HA- beginning (or both). One is for kids to practice the phonics they are being explicitly taught, and one is for kids to gain meaning, so they can develop their language, comprehension skills, and knowledge. Here’s the spoiler: there is a role for both kinds of text for primary grades. Nightfall came quickly and hurried poor farmers to bed. In a small village in Malawi, where people had no money for lights, You’ll have to imagine some adorable illustrations.Īnd here’s a sentence from a real text that is rich with meaning, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. Here’s a (fake) text that is all about early phonics patterns: Hats!, by Yours Truly. First, let’s look at an example text for each assertion. Let’s pull this apart a bit, tuning into one radio station at a time. How do we reconcile these two when we’re trying to choose a book? For an early reader, which kind of text is right? Do we lean into phonics patterns, or do we lean into meaning-rich text? Should I get a “decodable” text, or an award-winning picture or chapter book with great themes? Once I’ve selected a text, how can I involve families in building a confident reader? But we also hear strong voices-often the very same ones-insisting that systematic, explicit phonics instruction using phonics-aligned text is both effective and a key equity issue. We hear strong voices arguing for use of complex, grade-level text. Those tuned in to debates about best practices in literacy instruction know that all of this can feel as confusing as picking up two radio stations at once. So what should we use? Many of these kids can’t really read yet, so what does it even mean to think about text level? Access to that text is an equity issue.īut wait: What about kindergarten and first grade? If we try looking up a Lexile® range in the Common Core appendix, we find some N/As on the chart for K–1. If you’re a reading teacher, I’m sure you’re hearing loud and clear that we need to teach all kids with complex, grade-level text.
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