Decodable vs. Leveled Books: What Are Decodable Books, Really?

The cover says “Short A.” You flip to page 2 and find ship and was. Is that book decodable?

It depends on what your students have been taught. If they’ve learned the digraph sh and they know was as a heart word, yes. If they haven’t, that “decodable” book has two words on one page they can’t read yet.

People argue about decodable vs. leveled books like you have to pick a side. I use both, but for very different jobs. My short answer: decodable books are for instruction, and leveled books are not. In this post I’ll walk through what each one is, where each one belongs, and how to check whether a book is decodable for your students.

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What Are Decodable Books?

A decodable book is written so that almost every word uses phonics patterns students have already been taught. The rest are usually heart words, the irregular high frequency words like said and was that students learn as exceptions.

Good decodables are cumulative. A short a book should also use the consonants and patterns that came before it, so students keep practicing old skills while they work on the new one. A book that only repeats cat and hat gives practice with one pattern and not much else.

Decodables have limits. The vocabulary is narrow because every word has to fit the patterns taught so far, and some read like a word list with a story stuck on. That’s fine for practice, but it’s why they can’t be the only books kids see.

Decodability depends on what you’ve taught. Cat isn’t decodable for a student who hasn’t learned short a yet. Researcher Heidi Anne Mesmer describes decodability as a continuum, so the same book can be decodable for one group and not for another, even in the same classroom.

What Are Leveled Books?

Leveled books are sorted by difficulty, usually with letters (A to Z) or numbers. The level comes from things like how many words are on a page, how long the sentences are, how much the pictures help, and how familiar the topic is.

Phonics isn’t part of that. A Level F book can have ship and grouchy on the same page. The level can’t tell you whether a student can read ship. Knowing what that student has been taught can.

Early leveled books also lean on repeated sentence patterns and picture support. Kids can get through them by memorizing the pattern and checking the picture, which looks like reading but isn’t decoding. If you’re wondering whether that habit is showing up in your room, my post Is 3-Cueing Still in Your Classroom? walks through what to look for.

What the Research Says

Decodable texts give beginning readers a chance to practice the phonics they’re learning in sentences and stories, not just in word lists. Timothy Shanahan has written that decodable text makes the most sense early on, while kids are first learning to decode, and that it shouldn’t be the only text they read.

A 2023 analysis by Pugh, Kearns, and Hiebert looked at reading intervention studies for struggling readers in kindergarten through third grade. Interventions that used only decodable texts or only other texts had similar effects. The few studies that used both types showed stronger results, though there weren’t many of them.

For a teacher, that means decodables are the instructional text while students are learning the code. Other books still belong in the day. They just have a different job.

When to Use Decodable Books

Use decodable books when the goal is reading practice with the skills you’re teaching:

Phonics instruction, right after you introduce a new pattern
Review of patterns from earlier weeks
Small groups
Intervention
Centers and independent practice
Books that go home with beginning readers

As students learn most of the phonics patterns and can decode multisyllabic words, decodables phase out. At that point you’ll use them mainly alongside phonics lessons, and students spend more of their reading time in regular books.

Where Leveled Books Belong

Leveled books are not for instruction, but they do things decodables can’t. The vocabulary and sentence structures are richer, and the stories are usually more interesting to kids. They also give stronger readers a challenge that decodables don’t.

For a beginning reader, those benefits come through when you read the book to them or read it together. Once students can decode most patterns, rereading leveled books builds fluency and comprehension on their own.

They work well for:

Read alouds
Shared reading, where you read and students follow along
Building vocabulary and background knowledge
Free time and choice reading
Books a student picks because they love the topic

What I don’t do is hand a leveled book to a child who can’t read it on their own and ask them to read it. And for any of the uses above, ignore the level. Pick the book for the topic, the vocabulary, or the student’s interest.

Is This Book Decodable for Your Students?

This check takes a few minutes and works with any book, including ones already labeled “decodable.”

1. List what you’ve taught. Write down the phonics patterns your students know so far, plus the heart words they’ve learned. Your scope and sequence is the easiest place to pull this from.

2. Check one page. Read it and mark every word that doesn’t fit your list.

3. Look at the words you marked. There’s no research-backed percentage for how decodable a book should be. The 80% you may have heard comes from Texas textbook adoption rules, and Isabel Beck, whose work shaped how decodable text is defined, estimated 70 to 80%. That’s a fine ballpark, but two books can both be 80% decodable and be very different for your kids. Look at which words don’t fit:

Is it one word repeated? If said shows up six times, that’s one word to preteach. Six different untaught words is six.
Is it a heart word they’ve learned? Then it counts as readable, even though it doesn’t follow the rules.
Is it a name? Character names like Jess or Grace are easy to tell them up front.
Does the book practice what you just taught? A page can be mostly decodable and still have only one short a word. That book isn’t short a practice.

4. Decide. If there are only a few, or they’re repeated words and names, preteach them and go. If they’re scattered patterns your students haven’t learned, pick a different book.

Preteaching can be quick. Before the book opens, you might say:

“Before we read, here are two words you’ll see. This is Grace. She’s the girl in our story. This word is said*. We know* s says /s/ and d says /d/. The middle is the tricky part, so we’ll put a heart over it. Let’s read it and spell it together.”

If you’d rather not count by hand, the free Decodable Text Checker does this for you. Paste in the passage, pick the skills your students have learned, and it marks every word they can decode and flags the ones they can’t yet, with the reason for each. You can also mark the heart words they know.

Two Common Mistakes

Trusting the label. “Decodable” on the cover means decodable for the publisher’s scope and sequence. If that publisher teaches digraphs before your curriculum does, the book won’t line up with your kids. Run the check before a book goes in your bins.

Sending leveled books home for independent reading. A student who can’t decode yet will get through a patterned leveled book by memorizing and guessing. It looks like reading at home, and it builds the habit you’re working to undo in class. Send a decodable home instead, and save the leveled book for a parent to read aloud. My post What to Say When a Child Gets Stuck has four prompts you can share with families, too.

Where to Get Decodable Texts

If you need decodable texts, I keep a list of places to find them, including free options, in Where to Find Decodable Texts.

If you want passages that are ready to print, I have decodable passage sets for Kindergarten Review, 1st Grade Review, and 2nd Grade Review, plus skill sets for CVC Short Vowel and CVC & Consonant Blends.

Try This Week

Decodable books are how kids practice reading the code you’re teaching them. Leveled books do the other jobs, like read alouds and vocabulary. This week, check one page of the next book you hand a student before they open it.

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