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Two elementary students reading a beginning readers book

Using Decodable Books

Learn more about the value of using decodable books in phonics instruction to reinforce your students’ decoding skills and reading fluency.

What Are Decodable Books and Why Are They Important?

What Are Decodable Books and Why Are They Important?

Decodable books play an important role in phonics instruction and building confidence in young readers. Learn more about decodable books, how they differ from predictable texts, and how to select high-quality texts that align with the scope and sequence of your phonics program.

Young girl with hearing aid reading a graphic novel

Favorite Books for Kids with Learning and Attention Issues

Discover what kinds of books are especially popular with children who struggle with reading. The recommended books are based on a Reading Rockets survey of parents and educators of children with learning and attention issues, including dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder.

collage of portraits of well-known children's authors

Sample Author Study: Patricia Polacco

Our Author Study Toolkit provides the step-by-step for studying authors in the classroom. But what would a real author study unit look like when you fill in the details? We’ve developed a sample author study using the popular author and illustrator, Patricia Polacco, as the model. Her much-loved books include Pink and Say, Thank You, Mr. Falker, and Thunder Cake. Polacco’s themes are timeless and provide rich opportunities for in-depth study.

Finding Children’s Books in a Pandemic

Finding Children’s Books in a Pandemic

As COVID-19 continues to disrupt, educators who find themselves working with students either within or outside of school walls or both have an increased need for digital content and access to books. Many organizations and publishers who already make it their mission to support readers are doing even more to assist educators, caregivers, and families in light of the pandemic.

Exploring Wordless Picture Books

Exploring Wordless Picture Books

Wordless picture books may be better defined by what they do contain — visually rendered narratives — rather than what they do not contain. This article challenges traditional ways of looking at wordless picturebooks and offers a few approaches for integrating wordless picturebooks into a wider range of classrooms, preschool through middle school.

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Matching Books to Phonics Features

There are several ways to match books to readers — by reader interest, by reading level, and by the phonics features a child is learning. Careful pairing of reading with phonics study gives children a chance to apply what they are learning about letters and sounds to the reading of words and stories. Because the goal of phonics instruction is to help children use the alphabetic system to read and spell words, it’s important to provide students with this practice.

Hooking Struggling Readers: Using Books They Can and Want to Read

Hooking Struggling Readers: Using Books They Can and Want to Read

One of the keys to helping struggling readers is to provide them with books that they can and want to read. Fiction for struggling readers must have realistic characters, readable and convincing text, and a sense of the readers’ interests and needs. Non-fiction books, newspapers, magazines, even comic books can hook students on reading.

Mother and daughter reading together outside in tent made of sheets

Summer Reading

Ron Fairchild and Loriene Roy — nationally recognized experts on reading and summer learning — address how to make the most out of the summer months. Taking advantage of high-quality programs and accessing community resources can turn potential summer loss into summer gain.

Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your Second Grader

Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your Second Grader

The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

Repeated Interactive Read Alouds in Preschool and Kindergarten

Repeated Interactive Read Alouds in Preschool and Kindergarten

Research has demonstrated that the most effective read alouds are those where children are actively involved asking and answering questions and making predictions, rather than passively listening. This article describes in detail a technique for a three-step interactive read aloud using sophisticated storybooks.

First grade girl reading book in class

Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your First Grader

The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your Kindergartener

Phonics and Decoding: Activities for Your Kindergartener

The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

First grader at board reading 3-letter words for teacher

Basics: Phonics and Decoding

Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech. 

Frank McCourt

Reading for Meaning

Helping kids connect with what they read. Hosted by Frank McCourt, this episode highlights effective strategies to help kids understand — and care about — what they read, the ultimate goal of learning how to read. 

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