Choosing a phonics sequence & decodable books
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Phonics teaching sequences give an outline of which sound-spelling relationships are to be taught, and in what order. Most of them also include work on word-building with prefixes and suffixes. Schools in my state (Victoria, Australia) without a phonics teaching sequence must choose one this year, thanks to the Making Best Practice Common Practice announcement (applause).
A good phonics sequence works from simple to complex, separating similar sounds/spellings (like b/d), and targeting high-impact patterns first. Ideally, there are matching, high-quality teaching materials, and excellent training and support, readily available at a reasonable price.
Decodable texts allow children to practise what they’ve been taught in phonics lessons, without being tripped up by a whole lot of harder spellings. What we practise, we learn. The type of reading material given to young children can have at least as big an impact on their reading habits as what they’re taught in class (see this article, or this book), so decodable texts must be chosen carefully and wisely. This blog post aims to help with this decision-making.
Things supplier websites won’t tell you
Supplier websites provide lots of great information about decodables, but don’t say that some books offer limited opportunities to practise some targets, or include words that are quite hard for their intended readership. The ERA Books Phonics Decodables 1.0 and 1.1 Set 4 books ($8.95 each, so $35.80 for all 4) list ‘k’, ‘h’, ‘f’, ‘l’ and ‘j’ as letter-sound targets. The words suitable for absolute beginners in these four books are: ‘Kim’, ‘Kip’, ‘kid’, ‘him’, ‘had’, ‘hen’, ‘hug’, ‘hat’, ‘fit’, ‘fun’, ‘fed’, ‘lid’, ‘log’, ‘Jim’, ‘jam’, ‘jug’, and ‘jet’ (17 unique words, 44 total words). Some other words also contain the targets, but in difficult-for-beginners CVCC, CVCC, CCVCC or CVCCC* words: ‘help’, ‘frog’, ‘fits’, ‘lift’, ‘just’, ‘sink’, ‘help’, ‘milk’, ‘flips’, ‘lifts’, ‘jumps’ and ‘like’.
The Sunshine Decodables Series 1 Set 3 book “Mud fun” lists the following targets on its back cover: ‘c’, ‘k’, ‘ck’, ‘j’, ‘qu’, ‘v’, ‘w’, ‘y’, ‘z’, ‘zz’, ‘ff’, ‘ll’, and ‘ss’. The only words containing these spellings I can find in the book are: ‘van’, ‘will’, ‘job’, ‘off’, ‘wets’, ‘wax’, and ‘kids’. No ‘c’, ‘ck’, ‘qu’, ‘y’, ‘z’, ‘zz’, or ‘ss’ words. The only ‘y’ words I can find in all ten Set 3 books are: ‘yes’ (two instances), and ‘yum’ (one instance). I wonder why they couldn’t work ‘yam’, ‘yap’, ‘yell’, ‘yet’ and ‘yuck’ in too. Writing good decodable books is hard work, and everyone who attempts it deserves some credit, but (call me old-fashioned) the phonics targets listed on the back of a book should actually be in that book, and in more than one or two words.
Free decodable book evaluation form
I’ve made a free decodable book evaluation form which I use in the 45 minute video below to evaluate a few of the many books which follow the Letters and Sounds phonics teaching sequence. This sequence was published by the UK government in 2007. I hope the form and video are useful to anyone feeling baffled by the confusopoly of decodable books now available, and needing a system to help them find lovely books that help their learners thrive. Sorry it’s quite a long video. If you’re time-poor and fairly familiar with the topic, crank up the speed using the little cog at bottom right, then just switch it back to normal speed for the most interesting bits. Making people sound like chipmunks also adds a bit of fun to the day.
Here are some examples of early years phonics teaching sequences, with links to matching decodable books and training providers. There’s no such thing as a perfect sequence, so please explore a variety of them, and related teaching materials and training, before choosing. Inclusion in this table does not constitute endorsement.
If you have a mixture of decodable books from various publishers/sequences, the NSW SPELD decodable book selectors can help you organise them into your preferred sequence. There’s also a free video training called Implementing a Systematic Synthetic Phonics approach on the government-funded Literacy Hub website, which has its own phonics sequence, but no decodable texts. Jocelyn Seamer runs early years phonics training and has program-agnostic resources. Free recordings of 2018 Victorian Dept of Ed webinars on synthetic phonics and related topics are also still available. The Five from Five website is also an amazing resource.
I hope all this is helpful to people choosing a phonics teaching sequence. I’m running small, hands-on workshops where you can have a Proper Look at a range of decodable books at the Spelfabet office in North Fitzroy this term, and try out my evaluation form on some (here’s the link to it again). Sorry it’s taken a while to get the workshops off the ground (life keeps thwacking me). Tickets to the sessions are not yet all in the website shop because of software glitches, but they will be by the end of the week.
Alison Clarke
PS The Spelfabet shop doesn’t sell decodable books suitable for absolute beginners, but has beginners’ quizzes, and Phonics with Feeling download-and-print decodables for kids in their second and third years of school (or later Foundation students). Also embedded picture mnemonics to help tinies learn basic sound-letter relationships, that two letters can represent a sound (sh/shell, oo/food), and that some sounds have shared spellings e.g. u/up (or u/undies, if you prefer) and u/unicorn.
* C = consonant, V = vowel. VC words include ‘in’, ‘at’ and ‘up. CVC words include ‘hot’, ‘sun’ and ‘fed’. CVCC words include ‘milk’, ‘help’ and ‘just’. CCVC words include ‘stop’, ‘from’, and ‘bent’. CCVCC words include ‘flips’, ‘trend’ and ‘stamp’. CVCCC words include ‘jumps’, ‘lifts’ and ‘grabs’. Please start beginners off with just VC and CVC words.
** Sounds-Write now has Australian and US branches.
12 responses to “Choosing a phonics sequence & decodable books”
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The Spelfabet shop has affordable, downloadable spelling teaching resources.
Hi Alison,
Thank you for encouraging teachers to take a look at various sets of reading books with a view to a very thorough analysis.
I would like to comment, however, about the restrictions placed on word structure and length in the ‘Letters and Sounds’ (DfES, 2007) publication via its ‘phases’. This is limiting – and self-fulfilling. If children are not exposed to lots of practice of words with different structures (from an early stage), then they are far less likely to be able to read longer words. This, arguably, is too restrictive.
Also, it depends on the pedagogy of the phonics programme. The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme is now in 5,000+ schools in England possibly because it is linked to the DfE originally setting out to make it the government ‘revised’ Letters and Sounds programme. The LW pedagogy is strictly ‘no worksheets and no workbooks’. I am horrified by this. I am the author of several content-rich SSP programmes and my approach is the exact opposite. I think well-designed, content-rich paper-based material is invaluable. This provides masses of ‘per child’ practice and over learning, and gives children a sense of their learning, the phonics books or phonics folders are routinely shared with home to provide not only the content of the phonics provision, but also how their child is faring. Revision is SO EASY because it amounts to ‘turn back’ to previous learning. This enables, mathematically, code, word and text count, a massive amount of over-learning. Consequently, children make great progress and love their paper-based activities, their routine practice – and they are the illustrators throughout for the mini stories of ‘plain texts’. Our phonics reading books are ‘complementary’ rather than ‘the programme’.
As you are in Australia, here is some feedback from teachers in Australia that use our Phonics International programme and/or our No Nonsense Phonics programme:
https://hepplewhite.org/2023/06/07/superb-feedback-from-australia-using-no-nonsense-phonics-in-schools/
Here is some feedback from teachers in England who expressed their ‘surprises’ of what children can do when given the opportunity – children they thought they knew but ‘surprised’ them with their progress (which meant they did not know the children’s potential):
https://hepplewhite.org/2023/05/09/england-reading-leaders-from-the-flying-high-trust-share-their-surprises-from-the-implementation-of-no-nonsense-phonics-in-their-infant-junior-and-primary-schools-guest-post-by-carl/
I have always been critical of the original ‘Letters and Sounds’ – horrified it was described as a ‘quality phonics programme’ with its complete lack of teaching and learning resources. It seems we are still suffering from it all these years later.
Warmest best wishes,
Debbie
Hi Debbie, I agree that restricting the number of sounds in words to three in the first two phases of Letters and Sounds isn’t a great idea, as there are so many words kids can read and write with adjacent consonants once they know the basic code, and they don’t need new knowledge, just to get good at blending and segmenting, which sometimes gets overlooked as a skill requiring lots of practice. If you add the complexity of vowel spellings into the mix and a learner can’t read the words, it’s sometimes hard to know without listening to them closely whether they’re struggling with blending, code knowledge, or both. Much easier to sort out blending using established code first, and then move on to harder code.
I’m sorry I didn’t put your program in my table, I just ran out of time to find the right things to link to, you have a lot of stuff online and I am very confused about the difference between No Nonsense Phonics and Phonics International. I wasn’t sure where to find the link to the No Nonsense Phonics scope and sequence, is it on the Phonics Intervention website somewhere? And I couldn’t find the printed books anywhere in your shop, only e-books, which say they are No Nonsense Phonics and Phonics International books, but are they two different things? I’d love to have time to read your whole website but I don’t, and (if you don’t mind me saying so) it’s a bit confusing because there is SO MUCH information, often on a very long page that you have to know to scroll down, so it’s hard to find specific things. If you can send me the URLs you think should be in my table for No Nonsense Phonics (scope and sequence, link to where to buy the paper books as well as the e-books, training page) I will add them to the table. Thanks, Alison
Thanks Alison, this is gold. I’m forwarding it to a Learning Coordinator in a school that is resourcing for SOR practice and wading through the choices.
Thanks for the lovely feedback. Hope the school ends up with a really great sequence and plenty of great resources, so next year their teachers are all set up to get everyone reading and spelling really fast and well, and don’t have to spend any time outside school hours making up resources or downloading things from Teachers Pay Teachers! Alison
Thanks Alison, again a very helpful article!
For clarity, there are 45 validated phonic ‘programs’ in the UK with at least 16 of these based on Letters and Sounds, all with slight differences. Like we all know though, whilst this is a great step forward it is also about implementation fidelity!
DSF does have online trainings too for ‘Enhanced Letters and Sounds.’ Currently, there is one workshop loaded with more to come in the next week or so.
See – https://dsf.net.au/our-services/professional-learning/event-details/enhanced-letters-and-sounds-effective-whole-school-7250c7b8
Hi Lisa, that’s very interesting, thanks for pointing this out, I didn’t realise there were so many UK programs nowadays, I haven’t been paying close attention to them since the days of matched funding. Thanks also for the link, will see if there is room to add it to my blog post. All the best, Alison
Thanks very much Alison (as an aside you have a wonderful turn of phrase). For a number of years I’ve looked at school performance in UK both at the end of KS1:.first 3 years, and at the end of Key Stage 3 and also their websites which are often informative – not always, alas (mainly in deprived areas). The main reason for starting the exercise was to show progress since the introduction of SSPhonics and also highlight their effectiveness on Twitter. A number of schools have undoubtedly improved by the end of KS1 butyet have very disappointing results by the end of primary schools(Year 6). Best Performing Schools included in ‘best 100 Sunday Times’ list this year include many schools using Letters & Sounds, some using RWI,a few Jolly Phonics and a few outliers – progressive schools and small Muslim schools.After much soul-searching and reading about how children learn, difficulties of children with ASD/ADD, David Share’s self-teaching theory etc. I’ve reached some conclusions … and will e-mail you as soon as I get my act together. btw – I wish we had the expert speech therapists that you have, here in the UK. Best, g
Anyone have any wisdom on choosing a program to use in a special school where the students are all on ICPs and none working at more than a Gr 2 curriculum, many not even on the Prep curriculum due to their intellectual disability. I’m familiar with Sounds Write but trying to work out if there is a program more tailored for our students.
It might be worth looking at BRI: Beginning Reading Instruction which achieves outstanding results for SEN children inc. those with PMLD. The programme looks rather retro (it was developed and trialled over 5 years in 100s of schools in late 60s early 70s by a distinguished team of child psychologists, psychometricians, working with children’s authors – (with light-touch updating of instructions when we launched in UK). BRI stands alone and is also used very successfully with linguistic phonics programmes. Each element of the alphabet code is repeated many times in different stories with confidence levels enhanced by the liveliness and humour of the stories. There are no add-ons required, or special training. The website is http://www.piperbooks.co.uk.
I’d also strongly recommend Ann Sullivan @PhonicsforSEN. She has superb knowledge of the whole area of SEN.
Hi Holly,
Much of phonics provision is not as ‘tangible’ or permanent in the form of paper-based resources providing appropriate activities for each and every learner. There can be too much dependency on the adult ‘doing’ the phonics ‘to’ the learners and not sufficient application and practice giving the learners masses of practice to learn the requisite alphabetic code and apply the phonics skills and sub-skills for reading and for spelling and handwriting. Indeed, one of the fastest growing programmes in England does not even believe in learners having their own worksheets or workbooks. I suggest this is part of the problem and especially for learners with difficulties and slower-to-learn children. May I suggest that you explore the type of ‘core’ resources in the free Phonics International programme – including the ‘Early Years Starter Package’ which is like a programme within a programme. See: https://phonicsinternational.com . This programme has been used in many different countries and contexts (with learners of all ages) – and in mainstream and special schools – and although anecdotal, it has received a wide range of fantastic feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at debbie@phonicsinternational.com . Best wishes, Debbie
I would certainly agree that there can be too much reliance on adults doing the work. But one of the problems is that w/sheet demands can dominate the progress of reading fluency via sustained reading a transition that should ideally take place following teaching of c.80 correspondences. Otherwise there’s evidence that reading progress is hampered, post phonics screening check, and that a similar pattern as US, namely ‘the 3rd grade’ slump is evident. The UK schools using the most popular programme are the top performing schools. It’s generally schools in the poorer areas of UK that suffer most from the lack of benefit of a story-reading culture including the ability for sustained reading.
“Choosing a Phonics Sequence & Decodable Books” is an insightful guide for educators and parents. It highlights the importance of structured phonics sequences and selecting appropriate decodable books to enhance reading skills. The article provides practical tips, ensuring a solid foundation in literacy for young learners. A must-read for effective teaching strategies.