November 1, 2023

Lakeville Area Schools elementary teachers are using decodable books to support evidence-based reading instruction, which in turn supports student literacy. Decodable text is a type of text that focuses on the phonetic code and provides students the opportunity to practice and apply the letter-sound relationships they are learning in the classroom. 

“Decodable books, which feature decodable text, serve as a useful tool to help students solidify and generalize phonics skills to become fluent readers,” said Sandy Giorgi, Director of Elementary Teaching & Learning.

Unlike predictable text, which was used widely in the 80s and 90s and built around repetition, decodable text allows students to depend on the alphabetic code and involves no guessing, picture clues, or rote memorization. Decodable text contains multiple examples of the words with the target pattern, and words and patterns that have been previously taught. 

“With decodable text, there are no surprises – these texts provide practice using and reading words with the phonics skills students have been taught,” said Dawn Resch, Elementary Teaching & Learning Coordinator.

Once students have been taught explicitly what individual letters say, they are able to use that knowledge when reading a decodable book. For example, if students have been taught the sounds for ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘s’, and ‘t’, they are able to use their knowledge of those sounds to read sentences such as, “A sad man sat.” 

In the above, Cherry View Elementary teachers Kelsey Schons (1st grade) and Erin Meyers (kindergarten) provide a snapshot of explicit, small group instruction using decodable books to support student literacy. They show us how the instructional practices of structured literacy and decodable texts can support evidence-based reading instruction.     

“This work, which is being implemented at the elementary level across Lakeville Area Schools, is directly aligned with the new requirements of the Minnesota READ Act legislation that was passed on May 24, 2023,” stated Giorgi. The Minnesota Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act, known as the READ Act, aims to have every Minnesota child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten.