Methodology

The catalog is built to answer one question: which decodable books teach the skill my student is working on right now? This page explains where those answers come from and how they're checked.

Where the data comes from

An alignment is the match between a book set and the phonics skills it teaches. Every alignment in this catalog comes from the publisher's own published materials: scope-and-sequence pages (a program's plan for the order it teaches skills), level descriptions, and downloadable samples on the publisher's site. Each record links to the page it was read from, so you can check the publisher's claim yourself.

Alignments are never copied from third-party spreadsheets, other people's book lists, or anyone else's research. If a publisher doesn't say what a set teaches, the set is left out for now (see below).

Each alignment is entered from the publisher's page and then checked a second time, separately, against the same source. A person reviews every record before it goes live, and nothing is published straight from an automated web scrape.

Publisher-stated vs. inferred

Every set in the catalog is publisher-stated: its skills are taken directly from the publisher's own description. Some sets only show their skills through sample pages or book titles. We record those as inferred and hold them back until the site can label them clearly.

The 10-skill vocabulary

Publishers use different names for the same phonics concepts. One program's "magic e" is another's "VCe syllables." To make series comparable, every set is mapped to one shared list of ten skills, in roughly the order most programs teach them:

  1. CVC & short vowels: Consonant-vowel-consonant words with short vowel sounds, like cat, sit, and mop. This is the first step in most phonics programs and where brand-new readers begin.
  2. Consonant digraphs: Two consonants that spell a single sound: sh, ch, th, wh, ck. Usually introduced soon after CVC words.
  3. Consonant blends: Two or three consonants said in a row, each keeping its own sound, as in st, fl, and mp. Some programs call them clusters (CCVC and CVCC words).
  4. Glued/welded sounds: Letter chunks taught as a unit instead of sound by sound: the -ng and -nk endings, plus all, am, and an. Some programs call these welded sounds.
  5. Silent-e (VCe): The vowel-consonant-e pattern, where a final silent e makes the vowel say its name: cap becomes cape. Publishers call it magic e, sneaky e, or VCe.
  6. Vowel teams: Two vowels working together to spell one sound: ai, ay, ee, ea, oa. Often taught as long-vowel teams first, with variant teams later.
  7. R-controlled vowels: Vowels whose sound changes when an r follows them: ar, or, er, ir, ur. Often called bossy r.
  8. Diphthongs & variant vowels: Gliding and variant vowel sounds: oi, oy, ou, ow, oo, au, aw. Typically one of the last single-syllable patterns taught.
  9. Multisyllabic words: Words of two or more syllables, including compound words and syllable division (splitting a long word into parts). This is the jump from short decodables to longer text.
  10. Morphology & affixes: Meaningful word parts: prefixes, suffixes like -ed, -ing, and -s, and common roots. The bridge from decoding to vocabulary.

Each set's primary skill is the new skill it introduces, according to the publisher. Other skills the set covers are listed after it.

Prices and links

Prices come from the publisher's own store where possible, and each one shows the date it was checked. Prices change, so confirm on the seller's site before you buy. Buy links point to the publisher first, and some sets also link to Amazon or Bookshop.org.

Corrections

If an alignment doesn't match what the publisher says, or you're the publisher and we've misread your scope and sequence, email decodablebookfinder@gmail.com. We'll fix the record and credit you if you'd like.