Decodable Texts vs. Leveled Texts

 Learning to read in the primary grades is a complex process that is essential for students to master. We all know that the outcomes for students who never learn to read proficiently are dire as these students are more likely to drop out of school (Alliance for Excellent Education 2002), have higher rates of delinquency (Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture 1997), and experience higher incidents of suicide (Daniel et all 2006).  Evidence on how the brain learns to read has long supported the fact that in order to learn to read proficiently, students must be taught phonics explicitly in order to master the written code. 

As students begin to learn to read there are multiple components at work that must work in tandem to result in proficient reading. The National Reading Panel (2000) identified five key skill areas that must be present in literacy instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Kindergarten and first grade are key to building strong literacy foundations through developing phonological awareness skills which helps students to attend to the individual sounds in words. Phonics involves connecting the individual sounds to the graphemes that represent them in order to read and spell accurately. The ultimate goal of fluency involves the ability to quickly and accurately read text. Fletcher et al (2007) found that the vast majority of students identified with a specific learning disability were identified in the area of reading. The most common characteristic of students identified in this category is inaccurate word reading (Torgeson 2005). Typically, students with specific learning disabilities in reading tend to be significantly behind their peers in reading. In order for struggling readers to close performance gaps, they must be provided explicit instruction that allows these students to have both additional instruction and additional practice.

As part of literacy instruction at the elementary level there is an age-long debate about the use of decodable texts versus leveled texts. So what do each of these terms mean, and how do they fit into literacy instruction? As we examine these terms and look at instructional best practices, we will examine them through the lens of evidence based practices grounded in research.

 

What are Decodable Texts?

            Decodable texts are built around a specific phonics skill that typically provides multiple exposures to words that fit within the pattern being studied and build on previously taught phonics patterns. They are built on the belief that children develop word recognition skills through understanding the letter-sound relationship in words in order to recognize and decode words accurately and independently (The Reading League 2017). These types of text are generally built into a reading program’s scope and sequence for phonics instruction. Within decodable texts students will not be expected to read patterns that they have not already been explicitly taught. If you are not using a specific phonics program, you will need to preview the text before expecting a student to read it in order to ensure that all of the skills required to read the text have already been explicitly taught. The purpose of decodable text is to allow students to practice applying decoding skills and strategies in a controlled manner to build fluency.

            One argument that I have heard against the use of decodable text is that the stories are simplistic and not rich with vocabulary or strong story lines. However, when I think of stories that I might find on a shelf in a library, the author’s purpose is to provide information, tell an entertaining story, or some other purpose. These authors write with the assumption that one can already read; whereas, decodable texts are written for the purpose of providing practice with a specific decoding skill.

Beginning readers and struggling readers need multiple exposures to a skill in order for it to be transferred into long term memory, and struggling readers typically need far more exposures than an average reader to phonetic patterns in order for these patterns to become automatic. Decodable texts are one way of providing multiple exposures to these patterns in a connected text beyond just word list reading that builds student confidence in decoding the patterns of english (Hempenstall 2016). In 2012 Cheatham and Allor set about to analyze decodable text through the analysis of seven controlled studies. They concluded that when decodability was the primary focus of the text, students were more likely to utilize decoding strategies and experienced improvements in accuracy. They concluded there was evidence to support the use of decodable text particularly with early readers and struggling readers to build automaticity and accuracy.         

What are Leveled Texts?

            According to Fountas and Pinnell (2011) leveled texts are texts that have been arranged according to a gradient of reading difficulty based on factors such as: overall text length, the number of words in a sentence, the number of words on a page, word length, occurrence of high frequency words versus unique words, and word repetition as well as other factors. There are many variations of how these levels are classified or qualified with many programs having their own classification systems. Reading A-Z, Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading, The Wright Group, and Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) utilize an A to Z levelling system for books they produce. However, the three programs don’t necessarily utilize the same criteria to level books, so a D book in one system may not be the same as a D book in another system. The Directed Reading Assessment (DRA), Reading Recovery, and Rigby Literacy level their books based on a numerical system. At the elementary level DRA uses numbers 1-50, Reading Recovery uses 1-20, and Rigby uses 1-30. Again, these programs utilize their own criteria for leveling, so a number in one system may not necessarily be equivalent to the same number in another system. Meta Metrics has also developed the lexile system for leveling text based on a numerical range beginning at 190.

The one common feature of all of these leveling systems is that they level texts based on syntactic difficulty, and they are not controlled for phonics elements. At the lowest levels of texts each of these systems utilize a text format referred to as predictable sentences or predictable text (The Reading League 2017). Predictable sentences follow a specific syntactic pattern with a strong correlating picture match. For example, each page would contain the same sentence beginning, such as “This is a _____”,  with a picture that would represent the word that completed the sentence. For example, the story may have the sentence “This is a house” with a picture of a house. These predictable texts are not controlled for phonetic patterns and will often utilize phonetically irregular words that are concrete and easily depicted in pictures (The Reading League 2017). If you were to hide the pictures in these books, early readers would not be able to read them. For students who have not learned any phonetic concepts, these types of texts would be appropriate as children would be using the pictures for scaffolding. Predictable text is only useful at the very beginning stages of reading, and their use should not be continued once students begin to learn the phonetic code.

When students read this type of text, they are not attending to the phonetic code. There are different cognitive processes utilized when students read decodable versus leveled texts. Leveled texts were developed based on the belief that children learn word recognition skills when provided with strong picture support for words utilizing repetitive words and phrases in order to facilitate a child’s ability to accurately predict text and memorize words (Johnston 1998). Students thereby increase the number of words they are able to recognize through texts that incrementally increase in syntactic difficulty (The Reading League 2017). 

What does the research say?

In a research study conducted by Juel and Schneider-Roper in 1985, they examined the phonics lessons that were provided to first grade students who were then provided with either decodable texts or leveled texts. They found that students who were provided phonics lessons followed by the use of decodable text far outperformed the group that received phonics lessons followed by the use of leveled texts on the Metropolitan Readiness Test, the IOWA Test of Basic Skills, and a decoding skills test utilizing both pseudowords and unfamiliar words. Their study also revealed that students in the leveled text group would attempt to utilize visual cues such as pictures or word length to read unfamiliar words; whereas, students utilizing the decodables relied on their phonics knowledge to read unfamiliar words thereby extending their knowledge well beyond what had been taught.

When students are unfamiliar with the written code, poor readers will resort to using context in order to guess an unfamiliar word rather than decoding the word. Contextual guessing is a hallmark of poor readers. While proficient readers utilize context to monitor for meaning in a text, there is strong evidence that they utilize decoding strategies rather than context when reading an unfamiliar word in a text (Ehri 2002). When utilizing non-decodable text, students are exposed to multiple words that follow patterns that they are not familiar with forcing them to rely on the strategy of guessing using context. In 1991 Gough and Walsh found that guessing at words based on context is only a useful strategy about 10% of the time.

The use of leveled texts, no matter the leveling system, is based on the idea that if students are presented with texts that are not too challenging and not too easy, then this is where students will learn best, and comprehension, rather than decoding, will be the focus of the text. However, according to Tim Shanahan, one of the leaders of the National Reading Panel as well as a leading literacy researcher and blogger, he has been unable to find any research studies that support the idea that students learn best when utilizing leveled texts (Shanahan 2011). When looking at text levels, a few key criteria are missing from this system. Text levels don’t take into account a learner’s prior knowledge or the amount of scaffolding provided by the teacher.

When students are first learning to read, students need practice with texts that are controlled for frequently occurring words in text as well as the most common spelling patterns. It’s also important to remember that when students are reading independently, they should be reading texts that are at a level that can be read without frustration. However, research has shown that once students reach about a second grade reading level, they learn more when presented with challenging text that is supported through teacher scaffolds (Shanahan 2017). By limiting students to instructional levels, students become limited in their exposure to texts of more linguistic complexity and more advanced concepts.

Two studies were recently conducted on the impact of instructional levels on student growth and achievement. The first study conducted by Morgan, Wilcox, and Eldredge in 2000 looked at the use of frustration level texts with second grade students. One group was presented with materials at their instructional level, the second group received materials two grade levels above their instructional levels, and the third group received materials four years above their instructional level. The study concluded that while students in all groups made growth, the students that were taught using frustrational level materials made significantly higher gains in tests of word recognition, comprehension, and reading rate.

The second study conducted by Brown et al (2017) aimed to measure the effects of using frustrational level texts on student achievement. Their study found that students utilizing frustrational level texts far outperformed the proficient and non proficient students in the control group utilizing instructional level texts on assessments across various measures of reading achievement with the greatest gains shown in the areas of oral reading fluency and comprehension. When looking at the results of these two studies, Shanahan (2017) concludes that when students are placed in instructional level texts, student learning becomes limited; yet, student learning becomes optimized when students are provided with frustrational level text with appropriate support. 

Final Thoughts           

There are multiple different types of text, and each has their own place in the classroom based on the purpose of the lesson. There is nothing wrong with the use of either text, so long as they match the purpose of the lesson. Before students begin studying the phonetic code, students are considered to be in the Pre-Alphabetic stage of reading (Ehri 1999). In this stage students begin to recognize visual cues as sources of information. For example, they see the big yellow arches and understand this signifies McDonalds, or they can see a large red hexagon and know this means stop. In this stage children recognize words as pictures and view words as a whole. In this stage, the use of predictable texts would be appropriate; however, as students begin to learn letters and sounds and their connection to print, instruction needs to move away from predictable texts and towards the use of decodable texts (The Reading League 2017).

Once students have moved into using letter-sound associations, this is the Partial Alphabetic and Full Alphabetic Phases of reading (Ehri 1999), and decodable texts should be utilized to reinforce phonics concepts taught as well as providing additional opportunities for students to develop automaticity and accuracy with these concepts. In each of these stages teachers should also be utilizing read alouds above the students’ instructional levels in order to build oral vocabularies and to develop knowledge of content concepts.

When planning lessons, the consideration should be whether the text ultimately matches the purpose of the lesson. If I am teaching a phonics lesson, then I would want to utilize a decodable text for additional practice with the skill. If I’m teaching a lesson on inferencing, then I’m going to select a tradebook with rich vocabulary that is most likely above my students’ instructional level. This is due to the fact that if I’m reading the text with students, then I will be providing sufficient scaffolding to allow them to access the text. Ultimately, my goal as a reading teacher is to ensure that my students are able to decode with enough accuracy and automaticity that they are steadily building their sight word vocabularies and able to independently transfer skills to unfamiliar words they encounter in their own reading in order to make meaning from what they’ve read. It is an inarguable fact that in order to be successful in life, one needs to be able to read proficiently. As teachers we must always keep this goal in mind, and the texts we choose for instruction impact this process. There is no one type of text alone that is sufficient to teach children to read; however, we need to always keep the purpose of the lesson in mind to ensure appropriate text selection to best facilitate learning.

 

Works Cited

 Alliance for Excellent Education. (2002). Every child a graduate: A framework for an excellent education for all middle and high school students. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/archive/publications/EveryChildAGraduate/every.pdf.

 

Bown, L., Mohr, K., Wilcox, B., and Barrett, T. (2017, May 2). The Effects of Dyad Reading and Text Difficulty on Third-Graders’ Reading Achievement. The Journal of Educational Research. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3322&context=teal_facpub.

 

Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture. (1997). Education as crime prevention. Occasional Paper Series No. 2. Retrieved from http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/research_brief__2.pdf.

 

Cheatham, J. and Allor, J. (2012).  The influence of decodability in early reading text on reading achievement: A review of the evidence. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25 (9),  p. 2241- 2242.

 

Daniel S., Walsh A., Goldston D., Arnold E, Reboussin B, Wood F. (Nov-Dec 2006). Suicidality, school dropout, and reading problems among adolescents. Journal of Learning Disabilities 39(6):507-14.

 

Ehri, L. (1999). Phases of development in learning to read words. In J. Oakhill & R. Beard (Eds.), Reading Development and the Teaching of Reading: A Psychological Perspective, 79-108. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

 

Ehri, L. (2002). Phases of acquisition in learning to read words and implications for teaching. Learning and teaching reading. British Journal of Educational Psychology Monograph Series II, London, pp. 7–28.

 

Fletcher J, Lyon R, Fuchs L, Barnes M. (2007). Learning disabilities: From identification to intervention. New York: Guilford Press.

 

Fountas, I. and Pinnell, G. (2011). The Continuum of Literacy Learning: Grades PreK-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Gough, P. And Walsh, S. (1991). Chinese, Phoenicians, and the orthographic cipher of English. Phonological processes in literacy: A tribute to Isabelle Y. Liberman. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

 

Hempenstall, K. (2016). Read About It: Scientific evidence for effective teaching of reading. The Center for Independent Studies Research Report 11. Retrieved from https://dataworks-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Kerry.pdf.

 

Johnston, F. R. (1998) The reader, the text, and the task: Learning words in first grade. The Reading Teacher, 51. 666-675.

 

Juel, C., & Roper-Schneider, D. (1985). The influence of basal readers on first grade reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(2), 134–152.

 

Morgan, A., Wilcox, B., and Eldredge, J. (Dec 2000). Effect of Difficulty Levels on Second-Grade Delayed Readers Using Dyad Reading. The Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 94 (2), p113-119.

 

Shanahan, T. (2011, August 21). Rejecting Instructional Level Theory [Blog post]. Shanahan on Literacy. Retrieved from https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/rejecting-instructional-level-theory.

 

Shanahan, T. (2017, February 7). The Instructional Level Concept Revisited: Teaching with Complex Text [Blog post]. Shanahan on Literacy. Retrieved from https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/the-instructional-level-concept-revisited-teaching-with-complex-text#sthash.kNFa1zLD.dpbs.

 

The Reading League. (2017, February 16). Reading League Event November 10, 2016 Types of Texts Used in Reading Instruction [Video]. YouTube. URL https://youtu.be/uRhKsFHMEuw.

 

Torgeson, J. (2005). Remedial interventions for students with dyslexia: National goals and current accomplishments. Research-based education and intervention: What we need to know. Boston: International Dyslexia Association p103-124.