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Decodable books for Kindergarten are a must! How many of your students love to tell stories but struggle with fluency?
Many students understand how phonics works, but struggle when it comes to reading a story out loud.
That’s why we need to bridge the gap when it comes to reading with our students.
Reading is a fundamental skill for students because we use reading in ALL areas of learning.
So, how can you help your kindergarteners become stronger readers with awesome fluency?
By using decodable books for kindergarten!
Decodable texts are a powerful resource that’s changing the way students learn to read!
As the name suggests, decodable texts for kindergarten are designed reading materials that your students can decode or “sound out” based on their understanding of phonics patterns and sight words.
You can consider these texts such as my Short Vowel Decodable Readers, Decodable Passages, and Science of Reading Kindergarten Materials, as training wheels for young readers.
Decodable books for kindergarten provide a specific place where students can use their phonics skills. What does this mean?
Phonics won’t be on its own island any more. You’ll be building a bridge to the world of reading real stories!
This fosters their reading fluency and helps their confidence soar. Whether it’s a silly story about a cat who finds a hat or a fun-filled adventure featuring a bug on a bug, decodable texts allow students to see phonics in action!
This all sounds amazing, right? But how do you use these amazing resources? Keep reading to learn the following:
A decodable book for kindergarten is any text that features words that kindergarteners can decode or “sound out.”
What is considered a decodable text will depend on what phonics skills you have covered with your students.
For example, if your students have learned the ‘at’ word family, a decodable text would have words like ‘cat’, ‘rat’, and ‘bat.’
This gives students lots of opportunities to practice.
Decodable texts can also feature sight words. Giving students the opportunity to practice sight words in real-life reading situations helps put them into perspective.
You can even have students go on a sight word scavenger hunt while they are reading their decodable texts.
When you are selecting what book you are going to use for your students, you want to consider what they have already learned and practiced.
If you just covered the magic “e” this week, I wouldn’t use a decodable text with several words that use the magic “e” until the following week.
If your students have mastered the short vowel ‘a’, choosing a book that features that sound is perfect!
The content, of course, should be age-appropriate for kindergarten students as well.
The most important thing to remember is we want students to be successful. Are some going to struggle? Yes.
However, we want to make sure we are building confidence in reading as much as we can.
Teaching decodable books in kindergarten is a marathon not a sprint.
First, introduce the phonetic patterns or sight words that are going to be featured in the decodable book you’re going to be working on.
When you introduce them, you might want to do some fun activities in literacy centers, in your morning work, or as a whole class.
Some activities might include phonics games or flashcards.
Once students are familiar with the sounds, then you can preview the book together.
It’s important that you explicitly point out how the patterns you have worked on appear in the text.
By doing this, you’ll help your students see how the words can be used in the text.
Giving them this teacher-led experience can help them build confidence and do more reading with decodable books on their own.
After your students have a good understanding of the phonetic pattern or the sight words, give them an opportunity to use what they learned by reading the book out loud.
Your role is to guide and assist students. Be careful not to rush them because that can be discouraging.
We want to create a love of reading during this time. If a child is struggling with a word like “mug,” remind them of the ‘ug’ word family pattern they have learned.
You can use decodable books for kindergarten way more than just reading class! They can be the Swiss army knife of early literacy!
You can use decodable texts for spelling practice, comprehension, and sequencing as well! For example, you can have students dictate words from the text to a classmate.
The classmate then writes down the word. Moreover, you can have students answer questions about the story for comprehension help or have them retell the story in their own words.
If you’re feeling really creative, let groups “act out” what happened in the text.
Using decodable books for kindergarten reading is a great way to connect [phonics and real-world reading.
They give students an opportunity to apply their phonics knowledge and promote fluency.
This builds confidence in young readers which makes them more excited about the world of reading.
Having decodable texts in the classroom is obviously important to using them in the classroom. So, how do you organize all of these books?
I like to organize them by phonetic patterns or sight words each one focuses on. Using clear labels and color coding can make finding what you need simple.
For example, you can use a red sticker for books focusing on the short vowel ‘a’ sound, a blue sticker for the short vowel ‘e’ s words, and so on.
This not only helps you keep your decodable books for kindergarten organized, you also create a system your students can use to select their own books.
When students select their own books, they can focus on content they like and encourage independent reading.
You can help your students become strong readers using my Short Vowel Decodable REaders and Decodable Passages.
With these resources, your phonics instruction will be engaging, comprehensive, and super fun for you and your students.
These products include pocket chart sets to printable decodable texts, fluency exercises, and comprehension questions.
With all of this, you’ll have a complete phonics toolset at your fingertips!
Between these resources and the above tips, you’ll be able to revolutional reading in your kindergarten classroom with decodable books!
Phonics to Fluency
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