Decodable Passages

Decodable Passages will be launching on January 31!

Select decodable passages by instructional focus. Download and print passages for classroom use and sharing. You must be a premium member or in a partner state to use the Decodable Passages.

Decodable Passages Quick Start Guide

Lexile Decodability Analysis

⏤⏤⏤

How did you determine your scope of instructional skills?

To create a set of decodable stories that align with the majority of scopes and sequences in use, we recorded the scope and sequences of 25 different reading programs, including core curricula in use across the country. We then analyzed the order of the short vowels that appeared in each scope and sequence and designed stories to come up with the following instructional skills:
  • short a
  • short a, short i
  • short a, short e
  • short a, short o
  • short a, short u
  • all short vowels
  • all short vowels + a blend or a digraph

What are “Irregular Words”?

The term "irregular words” refers to any word that does not align with the given phonics focus of the passage. So, "fix" would be an irregular word for a “short a” passage but not for a “short i” passage. The word “fix” is "irregular" in the sense that we cannot assume the child has been specifically taught “short i” yet. We are trying to accommodate a vast group of educators with different scopes and sequences in their core program.

Please note that we are not using the term "sight words" because it means different things to different people. In customer discovery, some teachers have referred to sight words as words that should be memorized; others refer to them as words that are already memorized or mapped via orthographic mapping (aka learned by sight, in line with the SoR view). And we have heard other definitions from educators as well. Therefore, we chose to use the term “irregular words.”