Using Decodable Texts (Including Jump Rope Readers), a Decoding Assessment and an Understanding of Phonics to Help Readers Apply and Extend their Phonics Knowledge

Date: Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Time: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM ET

Location: Online, via Zoom

Led by: Sarah Mann

Who Should Attend: Grades 1-3 teachers and coaches

Cost: $150 per person

It’s one thing to buy a few series of decodable texts and bring them into classrooms; it’s a whole other thing to adjust your teaching to incorporate decodable books. This day will support you in this challenging work.

For the past several years, we have been working shoulder-to-shoulder with teachers in hundreds of schools as they incorporate decodable books into their workshops, and today we’ll harvest what we have learned to help you with the tsunami of questions that we know this work generates. There aren’t crystal clear answers to these questions, but it is helpful to hear ways in which teachers in other districts are tackling the difficult work of integrating decodable texts into their workshops. 

You will study ways to assess your readers so as to match them to decodable texts that will work for them. You’ll also study ways to support students’ phonics and decoding work as they read these texts, ways to group and create text sets for students, and ways to coach and prompt students to support accuracy and comprehension. You’ll explore a handful of high-leverage small groups you can use with decodable texts, including small group shared reading, guided reading, and partner reading.

Across this day, expect to:

• Evaluate decodable books, learning the strengths and challenges of various series so that you can adapt instruction accordingly and gain access to some of the most engaging and thoughtful decodable book series on the market.

• Hear ways that teachers are organizing their classroom libraries to include leveled, decodable and high-interest books, wrestling with the pros and cons of mixing decodable books into bins with titles such as “About Pets” or “C/D Levels,” and consider ways to organize kids’ book baggies to include the full range of books you’re curating for them. 

• Learn to use a phonic decoding tool and observations of students while reading to match kids to decodable texts, including the Jump Rope Readers. Discover how to use your data to get books into kids' hands right away and to plan your small group instruction.

• Analyze videos of high leverage small group instruction that is specifically designed to help kids to use decodable books to transfer, apply and extend their knowledge of phonics. 

• Consider whether there might be some reason to worry about an over-reliance on decodable books, given that the world we live in is not decodable and that kids need “a set for variability.” Prepare for kids to access higher level texts when your teaching emphasizes decodable texts. How can you help your kids tackle words that are outside their phonics knowledge and learn to be resourceful problem-solvers? 

• Consider what happens to comprehension and fluency instruction when teaching with decodable books.  Learn about essential small groups and minilessons and read aloud work that can help you ensure your instruction is truly balanced.