ABSTRACT
One big concern many teachers have with decodable texts and their controlled vocabulary is that they might teach children that reading is not a meaning-making endeavor. Although all texts have some degree of predictability and decodability, there tends to be an inverse relationship between the two when it comes to beginning reading texts. To make texts more predictable, authors use more familiar and easily illustrated words, which often means using words that are less decodable. Redundancy gives children multiple exposures to words. A strong beginning reading text strikes a delicate balance between practicing known spelling patterns and thinking about interesting ideas. Illustrations are an important tool for bridging this tension in beginning texts, potentially contributing to both cross-checking and sense-making. One of the perceived benefits of predictable texts is that they can help children start to feel and sound like fluent readers almost right from the start.
