News & Information

How to…dictate a sentence from a decodable book

How to...

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Dictation is a great way to consolidate the bonds between reading and spelling. It is a controlled exercise where students can succeed because the teacher includes words with spellings…

Read More

How to…correct reading errors

How to...

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** One of the most important elements of learning is receiving error feedback (How We Learn, Dahaene). With every error feedback, the student can adjust their knowledge or skill and…

Read More

How to…stop students from guessing

How to...

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Many students will have been encouraged to use guessing strategies by well-meaning teachers and tutors, such as guessing clues from the picture or the context, and/or skipping the word…

Read More

How to…read a nonfiction decodable book

How to...

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** Nonfiction decodable books are wonderful reading resources. They combine two essential parts of reading: word recognition (decoding) and world knowledge (language comprehension and subject vocabulary). Educators now recognize that…

Read More

How to…teach segmenting

How to...

In our ‘how to…’ series we are going to delve into all things phonics instruction and give you our expert advice on developing confident readers. *** First, what is segmenting? Segmenting is the ability to separate sounds in words. The smallest sounds are called phonemes. We use segmenting when we sound out a new word,…

Read More

Catch-Up Readers Leaflet

Find out all you need to know about the Phonic Books Catch-Up Readers Check out our leaflet to find out more about our decodable books for older readers and to answer any questions you may have, including: Why Phonic Books decodable books? What is the scope and sequence? Who is it aimed at? What titles…

Read More

Dandelion Series Leaflet

Find out all you need to know about the Phonic Books Dandelion Series Check out our leaflet to find out more about our Dandelion series and to answer any questions you may have, including: What is decoding? What are decodable books? Why Phonic Books decodable books? What is the scope and sequence? What titles are…

Read More

“Make Phonics Instruction Fun!”

This is a guest blog by Rayna Dineen, Reading Quest Founder and Executive Director. Reading Quest is an outgrowth of the student – led literacy campaign, Hooked on Books, and the NM Alliance for Literacy created by Santa Fe middle school students and their teaching principal, Rayna, at Santa Fe School for the Arts &…

Read More

Precise pronunciation of the sounds of the alphabet

When children begin their reading instruction, it is really important that they learn good habits so that they don’t need to unlearn them at a later stage. The first thing children will learn is how sounds of speech are represented by letters. In other words, they learn the relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.…

Read More

“Magic Reading Rocks” inspired by the Magic Belt Series

“The magic for these kids was finding a series that they could decode, that could keep their interest, that motivated hard work, and that made them sound and feel like successful readers.” ~Brin Tucker Last year I was serving as an instructional coach, intern mentor, and also ran some intervention groups. Our intern, Amelia Fontein…

Read More