Decodable Texts
Teach students how to read by decoding words.
Chunky Monkey |
Students have to segment (break) and blend (put together) the word. For example, if the word is ship, the word can be broken into beginning/middle/end — this means breaking the word into /sh/i/p/, putting it together to make ship. In a sentence, students may read the following: I like to play with my car. It includes many sight words and the word car can be read by segmenting and blending. Therefore, students would read it as a /c/ar/, assuming they have learned the "ar" word family. This is particularly helpful when following the phonics progression, learning vowel sounds, word families, and so on. |
Eagle Eye |
Here, students use the picture to help them figure out the word. This is also helpful when reading books in general because the illustrations often provide context clues to the words and sentences. |
Flippy Fish |
In this strategy, students have to find the vowel sound and "flip" it to read the word. For example, if students are reading the word boat, phonetically they may read the word as bot, thinking of the "o" sound. However, ask students to think about how else "o" can sound (i.e. sound it the same as how it is said) to get boat. Here is a helpful example. |
Helpful Kangaroo |
If students have tried all the strategies and are still struggling with the word, then they can ask someone for help. Here, having the Ask 3 Then Me strategy is useful, where students have to ask three of their peers before asking the teacher for help. |
Lips the Fish |
In Lips the Fish, students have to sound out the first few letters to decode the word. This might help students read the word before the even sound out all of the letters, which is why the emphasis is on using our lips to sound out the first few letters in anticipation of decoding the word. |
Stretchy Snake |
Students have to look at the word and stretch each letter. For example, if the word is stop then students would stretch the word by saying, "sssssttttttooooooppppp." This is also a helpful way to spell words. |
Skippy Frog |
When students are stuck on a word, they can skip the word. Once the finish reading the whole sentence, they can come back and read it again to see if they can figure out how to read the skipped word. |
Tryin' Lion |
This strategy focuses on trying again. It could involve reading the word again or the whole sentence, trying to decode the word because it might help students stumble upon how to read the word correctly. |