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  • Phonics

How long should students work with decodable text?

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Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
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Decodable text is a necessary part of a phonics lesson. What's the point of learning the correspondence unless you can use it in reading? So it's to provide that practice. Many students need a lot of practice using what you've taught them in a phonics lesson. It's not often not great literature; it's not for that purpose. It's for providing practice and reinforcement. So how long does it need to go on? ... Until the student can use most of the regular correspondences to read words accurately, and the student has a sight vocabulary, if you will, of probably several thousand words. Students differ. Some students can make that transition more quickly than others. So you have to keep data on the accuracy of student reading with decodable text to be sure that they have internalized what they've been taught.

Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.