Phonics With Feeling books are now in the Spelfabet shop
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Six sets of the delightful, affordable, download-and-print Phonics With Feeling decodable books by Gaia Dovey are now available from the Spelfabet shop.
You can download and print a free sample book here. It’s about the ups and downs of siblings and pets, sharing and drawing boundaries, and solving problems. One boy I know got to this page…
….and exclaimed, “That’s just like my sister! She always wants to do my things, and it’s very annoying!” He was hooked. The cute illustrations add emotion and humour to the story. Some children might enjoy colouring them in.
Each set of books has a parent/aide edition (print up to 5 copies @ 40c per print) and a teacher/clinician edition (print up to 30 copies @ 20c per print). Not as cheap as the free-till-the-end-of September Little Learners Love Literacy apps (so generous!), but an affordable way to get multiple copies of printed decodable books.
These books are intended to complement, not replace, existing decodable readers. They aren’t for absolute beginners. The Initial Code Review set is intended for children towards the end of their first year of schooling or in Year 1. The Extended Code sets are intended for children in Years 1 and 2. Depending on the child, any of these books can be used with a slightly older learner who needs graphemes introduced at a fairly gentle pace, and heaps of practice. There’s only so many times you can read the same book.
These books have a higher word count than the typical decodable book, so are perfect for consolidation/fluency work. I imagine they’d also be great for extension work for children who can easily read the shorter, simpler books that are at the right level for most of their classmates, but haven’t yet been taught more complex spellings.
The author of these books has a PhD in literature, taught English language and literature, worked in teacher preparation, and originally wrote the books for her grandchildren. It shows. They aim to provide both reading success, and the pleasure and emotional engagement which motivates children to read. Their extra length allows for cohesive narratives, entertaining plots, engaging characters and themes worth talking about.
The Phonics With Feeling books originally had their own website, but it was too much hassle to run (if you’ve ever run a website, you’ll know what I mean). I nearly cried when they disappeared, and contacted the author to find out why. I’m already dealing with the hassle of a website, and she’s really nice, so we decided to join forces.
Only the first six of an eventual eleven sets of books are available now. The rest are on their way. The original books are being reorganised to match the teaching sequence in the Spelfabet version 3 workbooks and other materials, and a few extras are being written and illustrated.
Each set of books is downloaded as a pdf file, which you save to your computer, then print with (preferably) coloured covers. We’re using 220 gsm coloured cardboard for covers, printing the covers first, via the rear feed of the printer. Then we print the rest of the book on A4 paper on the “flip on short edge” setting, then assemble, fold and staple the books with our special book-stapling stapler (probably not its real name).
I hope you like these books as much as I do, and that they make many children excitedly shout things like, “That’s just like my little sister/brother!” while getting enough practice of major spelling patterns to become skilled and enthusiastic readers.
PS on 15/9/21: I’ve started making Wordwall quizzes as follow-up activities for these books, which can be played online for free, but you might need a subscription to access the printable version. The top of the first printable quiz looks like this:
11 responses to “Phonics With Feeling books are now in the Spelfabet shop”
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The Spelfabet shop has affordable, downloadable spelling teaching resources.
I’m so pleased to hear you have these books. I use them with my students and they love them.
The illustrations are delightful and the stories are such fun to read. I can’t wait to see the additions to the series.
I can’t seem to see a download link?
The free sample is here: http://www.spelfabet.com.au/materials/free-sample. All my free resources are downloadable via the same system as the rest of the shop, you just skip the payment step.
Sorry, Alison , but how do you download a free feelings book so I can take a look? When I click on the one you have their it just shows one page.
Sorry to bother but I am interested as I am running out of decodables to use for online teaching.
You just go to this page in the shop https://www.spelfabet.com.au/materials/free-sample, then add the book to your cart, go through the checkout (you skip the payment step because it’s a freebie) and then go to the downloads area and download it.
Hi Alison and Gaia Dovey, thank you so much for writing these books and making them accessible. The Ben Jen and the Hens free download is just fantastic! I am having difficulty printing it correctly. I have tried to follow directions but still can’t get it right. When I get this sorted I will definitely be using them with my students.
Thank you!
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble printing Ben, Jen and the hens, it’s set up for A4 paper, and then you select double-sided and flip on short edge, so the pages face the right way. There is more information in the other file that downloads with the book. Let me know if you can’t get it to work. Alison
Hi Alison and Renee,
I have successfully downloaded and printed the 10 books written by Gaia Dovey. Thank you for your help. They are already working their magic especially with one student (year 2) who is a reluctant reader but loves reading these to her 3 year old sibling. She took over my Pocket Rockets for the same reason. The story lines ‘seem to hit the spot’. Looking forward to the next edition.
Hi Alison and Renee,
I have successfully downloaded and printed the 10 books written by Gaia Dovey. Thank you for your help. They are already working their magic especially with one student (year 2) who is a reluctant reader but loves reading these to her 3 year old sibling. She took over my Pocket Rockets for the same reason. The story lines ‘seem to hit the spot’. Looking forward to the next edition.
What is the sequence of these books? Does it follow the Sounds-Write or Letters and Sounds progression?
The sequence is here: http://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/teaching-sequence. It’s the Sounds-Write sequence but explicitly introduces common suffixes, prefixes and compound words after the Initial Code, and teaches the Extended Code more gradually than in Sounds Write, so it’s more like the Dandelion books sequence. A lot of our clients can’t cope with the big jump from learning one new digraph at a time in the Initial Code to suddenly learning four spellings of a new sound at the start of the Sounds Write Extended Code, so need this broken down, as our client group aren’t the mainstream kids who cope well with the standard Sounds Write sequence. They have lots of attention, memory, language and other difficulties. These resources are meant to supplement, not replace, Sounds-Write teaching, for example in Tier 2 small groups or intervention settings, or as home practice.