Decodable vs Levelled Texts: What’s Best for Early Readers?
As a parent, you've probably noticed that your child brings home different types of reading books from school. These might be colour-coded and known as levelled readers, or they might be something called decodable texts. But what exactly are these, how do they differ, and how do they support your child's literacy development? Let's explore decodable books versus levelled texts and take a look at the benefits and differences between these two approaches.
What are Decodable Books?
Decodable books are designed specifically for beginning readers. They contain the specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences (letters and sounds) that students have learned. This allows learners to apply their developing skills in segmenting and blending sounds to read words, helping them build automaticity and experience reading success independently.
In essence, decodable books encourage children to sound out words using decoding strategies rather than guessing from pictures or context. They can be introduced once beginning readers have learned some simple grapheme-phoneme correspondences and can blend from left to right.
Setting Good Reading Habits
The type of reading material we first give to students sets their reading habits. Ideally, we want them using knowledge of letter-sound relationships as the primary strategy for reading unfamiliar words. Decodable readers enable students to ‘sound out’ rather than guess unknown words, developing this habit and leading to more successful independent reading. Research by Mesmer (2005) found that children were more likely to apply their phonics knowledge, read more accurately, and needed less assistance when reading decodable books.
Why Decodable Books?
Sequential Learning: Decodable books build phonic knowledge gradually, allowing students to practice grapheme-phoneme correspondences and quickly build their confidence and ability to read connected text.
Phonological Decoding: Decodable readers focus on developing phonological decoding skills (decoding words by sounding them out), which are essential for reading success.
Motivation and Confidence: The simplicity of the text in decodable books motivates students and encourages them to read more widely. Studies have shown that children enjoy reading decodable books because it helps them to feel success, which in turn develops their reading confidence.
What About Levelled Texts?
Levelled texts, often colour-coded (e.g. turquoise level), are organised according to formulas that predict ease of readability. They often contain words with grapheme-phoneme correspondences that children have not been taught, making it difficult for them to read accurately and independently. This requires students to rely heavily on contextual guessing and predicting from other cues such as pictures, which can be challenging for weak or at-risk readers.
Masking Reading Difficulties
Levelled readers can sometimes mask underlying reading difficulties. Children with great visual memory might seem to progress well through the levels by memorising words and patterns. However, this reliance on memory over decoding skills becomes problematic as they reach mid-primary school, where the reading demands increase. Suddenly, it becomes apparent that these students are not truly reading but merely recalling memorised words. This can lead to significant struggles as they encounter more complex texts and are expected to read for comprehension and learning across various subjects.
Key Differences
Decodable Texts: Follow a scope and sequence, are phonically controlled, contain 85-90% of known sounds and irregular words, and have a small amount of new vocabulary.
Levelled Texts: Often contain untaught sounds or irregular words and require contextual guessing.
High-Quality Texts
While decodable texts are vital for developing phonological decoding skills, they are not the only texts that should be included in a beginning reader’s diet. Teachers and parents should read high-quality children’s literature that contains more complex vocabulary and sentence structures with students every day. This exposes children to good reading models and helps develop the vocabulary and syntax (understanding of sentence formation and the grammatical rules) that will support their reading development.
Choosing the right reading materials for beginning readers can significantly impact their reading success. Decodable books offer a structured, evidence-based approach that builds essential decoding skills and confidence, setting the foundation for lifelong reading success. By incorporating decodable texts alongside high-quality literature, we can provide a balanced and effective reading diet that meets the needs of all learners.
