Excerpts from: Why Beginning Readers Should Only Use Decodable Books by Susan Godsland, Independent Specialist Remedial Reading Tutor, UK
1. Decodable books are consistent with the synthetic phonics reading method; they go from simple to complex, use only explicitly taught code and illustrations that are designed to avoid acting as clues to text.
2. In order to become expert readers and spellers, children need to know the complete Alphabet Code and the skills of blending and segmenting. To ensure this, they need to be taught the code and the skills directly, discretely and systematically. Decodable books give them the necessary direct practice in newly taught code and skills.
3. There is no way of knowing which particular children entering a [kindergarten] class have poor visual memories or low, natural phonological ability. These children are likely to become struggling ‘dyslexic’ readers if whole-language books are used at first.
4. Decodable books help children avoid developing the bad habit of sight word guessing. This can be difficult to change when they get older and when the brain is less ‘plastic’. Those with good visual memories will develop this habit quickly and easily through the use of predictable, repetitive text. Eventually their memory for sight words will reach its limit and if they haven’t, in the meantime, been taught or deduced the complete alphabet code for themselves they will struggle to read advanced texts with novel words and no illustrations.
5. Repetitive, predictable texts are boring; that a child can only struggle through by misreading and guessing, resulting in lost comprehension.
6. The use of decodable books is only necessary for a short period in the foundation stage. When well taught, most children learn the code quickly, begin to self-teach and can then move on to real books rather than being stuck for several years on reading schemes with the restricted word count necessary to ensure adequate memorisation of the high frequency words.
7. Good spelling is aided by the use of decodable books.
8. Ease of decoding from the earliest days by simply sounding out and blending gives children quick success, ensuring long term enthusiasm for reading.
9. Parents easily understand the logic of decodable books and are more able and willing to help their children practise reading at home.
Do you agree with Ms.Godsland? Do you use decodable books in your classroom?
