Bookbot Decodable Books by Level

Decodable readers give children connected text built mostly from letter-sound patterns they have already been taught, so they can sound out each word instead of guessing from the pictures. That turns a phonics lesson into real reading practice. The National Reading Panel (2000) found that systematic phonics instruction brings significant benefits for children from kindergarten through sixth grade, and decodable texts are where children put it to work.

Levelled readers are sorted by overall difficulty, such as sentence length, vocabulary and how much the pictures help, so a child may meet words they cannot sound out yet. Decodable readers are sorted by phonics skill instead, and each new level adds a sound or spelling pattern. Our guide to levelled books explains how the two systems work.

Age is only a rough guide, because children pick up phonics at different speeds. Many 7-year-olds are moving from short-vowel words and blends into vowel teams such as ai, ee and oa, roughly the stage Jeanne Chall called confirmation and fluency. The better test is what your child can decode today, so start at the level whose sounds they are practising and move up when most words come easily.

Many of the decodable books in this library are free to read online, and the free titles are spread across the levels. Depending on the title, a free book may also offer read-along audio or a printable PDF. A study across 35 countries linked having books at home with stronger early literacy and numeracy (Manu et al., 2019), which is one reason removing cost matters.