According to the Iowa Reading Research Center, "Decodable readers are texts that introduce words and word structures in a carefully planned scope and sequence. The order in which that word structure is introduced often aligns with the scope and sequence of the curriculum. In this way, students have the opportunity to apply the phonics skills they are learning and to build confidence in their abilities to read full sentences and short stories."

There is no one universal scope & sequence for phonics skills or an agreed upon order of which phonics skills to teach first, next & last, there is universally agreed that phonics skills should be taught in a simple skills to complex skills order. When writing the Hello Decodables, Jen created her own Scope & Sequence, and you can read more about the skill order in her blog post about it.

Jen wasn’t always a fan of the decodables that accompanied big box reading curriculums, if any were provided at all, so Jen made sure to write decodable stories that were engaging, funny and actually made sense. For example, you will not find the following decodable sentence, or any other like it, in any of her books: The pig with a wig sat by the rig and did a jig. Literally no one would ever see this in real life, so while silly and playful on the surface, it’s obscure, uses odd language and is not realistic.

The science of reading research tells us that systematic, explicit phonics instruction followed by lots of opportunities to practice the new phonics skills in connected text is superior for readers learning to read. Hello Decodables are a fiction set of 60 books that progress from simple to complex skills and are successive in that each book focuses on one or two new phonics skills and incorporates all the previously taught phonics skills for more embedded, meaningful and repeated reading practice.  Decodables are ideal for students who are at the beginning of their “learning to read” journey. The first five books in the pink set only use the sounds  a, i, c, p, t, d, m, s, f, n.

Great question! Decodables are not a forever tool, they are a temporary bridge tool until a student's decoding and word recognition skills become accurate and automatic. This is probably going to be somewhere around the middle of second grade or when they can read error-free and automatically around level J/K of a leveled reading system.

Because decodables are skill specific, without  levels, they have a phonics skill focus. Phonics is not age or grade specific, so decodables are for any student of any age or any grade that have all 100+ phonics skills necessary to read, under their belt.

We do accept purchase orders and complete directions for ordering this way. Please see our P.O. Process page under Learn More for more info.

Yes, and many teachers have. On the Donors Choose website, you will complete the grant application as a Special Project. Donors Choose requires a quote and you can download that and complete it. lease see our DonersChoose page under Learn More for more info.

Our return policy is listed at the bottom on this website under Refund Policy, but no, we do not accept returns if the books arrive and you change your mind or the shrink wrapping is broken. If you notice a book missing or a book is torn, please process through our Returns Center.

Absolutely, Jen is always traveling to schools and districts for literacy professional development and she would love to come to yours as well. She can work with teachers directly and/or do some small groups with students in your classrooms using the decodables as well.  If you are interested in having Jen at your school, you can send her an email at jenjones@helloliteracy.com and she will share her PD packet, rates and availability.  If your school is new to the Science of Reading research and what that looks like and sounds like in today’s classroom, she is available for Science of Reading professional development as well.