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DECODABLE WORDS: by Dr. Patrick Groff / Professor of Education Emeritus / San Diego State University

From a longer article "Decodable Words Versus Predictable Text at << http://www.nrrf.org/decodable_vs_predictable.htm >> / by The National Right to Read Foundation at www.nrrf.org

• The idea of "decodable words" is one of the basic principles of direct, intensive, systematic, early, and comprehensive (DISEC) instruction of a prearranged hierarchy of discrete phonics information. Soon after the alphabetic code (the concept that each speech sound in a language can be represented by a letter) was conceived, a method of teaching this phonics information to novice readers was devised.
  
• The most logical practice to this effect has been to bring to beginning readers' conscious awareness the speech sounds in the language. This phonemic awareness is accomplished by showing fledgling readers a letter, while at the same time pronouncing a speech sound that the letter commonly represents. Then, the learners look at the letter in question, and repeat the given speech sound. These speech sound-letter correspondences are called phonics rules.
  
• This "paired-associate" learning of phonics rules proves to be effective in getting neophyte readers ready (a) to look at letters in the serial order in which they appear in familiar words, (b) to attach appropriate speech sounds to each letter (or letter cluster) in words, and (c) to blend together the speech sounds generated so as to produce an approximate pronunciation of a recognizable word. Beginning readers readily can infer the authentic pronunciation of a familiar written word if they gain access to its approximate pronunciation, it is found experimentally.
  
• This process of written word recognition is called "decoding." A "decodable" word therefore is a familiar one that a learner has been prepared ahead of time to sound-out (attach speech sounds to each of) its letters. Decodable texts thus are ones that contain only familiar words that students have previously been prepared to decode through the application of phonics rules. It is discovered empirically that beginning readers are more successful in accurately reading decodable texts than they are in reading texts that contain words students have had no prior DISEC phonics instruction on how to identify.
  
  More at the website <<http://www.nrrf.org/decodable_vs_predictable.htm >>