Find a Decodable Book User Guide

Preface

This guide is intended for authorized users of Lexile Find a Decodable Book who access and use the tool for classroom purposes. This document provides an overview and step-by-step guidance on how to access and use the tool.

Lexile Find a Decodable Book Description

Lexile Find a Decodable Book tool is designed to help educators find books that support phonics-based instruction. Users can select a specific vowel sound to discover published decodable books that include the selected sound. Results can be sorted by Lexile measure, percentage match of the vowel sound, and number of words in the book. The book details page includes a decodability analysis of the words in the book, including various vowel sounds, high-frequency irregular words, and contractions.

Features and Functionality

Lexile Find a Decodable Book Features

With the Lexile Find a Decodable Book tool users can:

Search published decodable books
Filter book search by vowel sound
View book details including spelling patterns, sound patterns, irregular words, and contractions

Premium Lexile and Quantile Hub membership includes access to advanced features across all the Lexile and Quantile tools. Educators in Lexile and Quantile partner states are automatically enrolled in premium membership to the Lexile and Quantile Hub. To take advantage of this special opportunity, educators should register using their school- or district-issued email address. Visit membership options to learn more.

How It Works

Overview

Lexile Find a Decodable Book allows users to filter decodable texts based on vowel patterns and sounds. Once selected, additional book details provide educators targeted information to design phonics-based instruction for students.

Step 1: Locate the tool

Select the Tools Menu
Select Find a Decodable Book tool

Remember! Whenever you are logging into your Hub account it is important to use your school email address.

Step 2: Select a Vowel Sound

Use the drop-down menu to filter your search by vowel sound.

Step 3: View Book Results

The results page includes decodable texts that include a high percentage of words with the selected vowel sound.
Results also indicate what other vowel sounds are included in the decodable book and the total words
The Lexile text measure is also included to help you match texts with your students.

Book results can be sorted based on percentage match, Lexile measure, and word count. Just select from the menu on the results page. (Image is used for demonstration only and does not represent actual book results).

Step 4: Read More About the Book

Select the Read More link to view additional information about the book.

You may also select “Purchase Book” if you wish to buy this book.
Once you have finished reviewing these book details, select the Back to Results button to return to your previous results page.

Classroom Application

Tailor Reading Materials to Meet the Needs of Your Students

Sort books by vowel sound and examine the difficulty of reading material based on high-frequency irregular words, Lexile text measure, and text length. Knowing the Lexile text measure of a reading material helps educators determine what types of support may be needed for students during instruction.

Pre Teach Vocabulary

View the vocabulary words that have been identified as consequential in the text from your analysis. Determine which words might be challenging for students and pre teach them to set your students up for success.

Design phonics-based instructional groups

Use this tool to help your students crack the alphabetic code by finding books that match your phonics-based instruction. The Lexile Find a Decodable Book tool allows you to quickly find a decodable text that will meet the diverse needs of your early readers.

Most Frequently Asked Questions

How are the High Frequency Irregular Words determined?

High Frequency Irregular Words include:

Dolch and Fry words (all grades) that did not fit into one of the cells in the table. For example, “in” is listed on the Dolch and Fry Sight word lists, but it fits in the table cell (in the short “I” row and VC column). Therefore, it was not listed up top under the header of “High-Frequency Irregular Words & Contractions.” This intends to place all decodable High-Frequency Irregular words (words that follow common phonic rules) in the table.
Monosyllabic words that did not fit into a cell in the table. You can see that only 10 vowel sounds are represented (5 short and 5 long). However, English words contain other vowel categories that we did not include in our ten rows of vowel sounds. For example, we did not include the /oo/ sound in words like “book” or the /ou/ sound in words like “soup.” Therefore, words like “book” and “soup” will be found under the High-Frequency Irregular Words category.
Words that contain rare graphemes (letters) that represent sounds. For example, the grapheme ‘i.e.’ represents the “long e” sound in the word “field.” However, even though the field is a monosyllabic word, and the table has a row for “Long e” sounds, as well as a column for vowel team spelling patterns, the word “field” will be categorized under “High-Frequency Irregular Words” because the particular sound-spelling mapping of, i.e., long e was not included due to its relative rarity in beginning reader texts. Determinations of rarity were made based on expert opinion and Research.
Contractions are any words that contain apostrophes.

What do the different short vowel categories in the decodability analysis mean?

VC/CVC(s):

This column is for words with short vowel sounds and a spelling pattern of:

Vowel-consonant words (“it”).
Consonant-vowel-consonant words (“sit”).
Plural or conjugated consonant-vowel-consonant words (“hens” or “sits”).

(CC)V(CC)(s):

This column is for words with short vowel sounds and a spelling pattern of:

Words with only an initial blend (“trip”) or digraph (“ship”).
Words with only an ending blend (“and”) or digraph (“ash”).
Plural or conjugated words with either an initial blend (“slips”) or ending blend (“rests”).
Plural or conjugated words with either an initial digraph (“ciips”) or ending digraph (“picks”).

(CCC)V(CCC)(s):

This column is for words with short vowel sounds and a spelling pattern of:

Words with both a beginning and ending 2-letter blend or digraph (“chunks,” “skunks”).
Words with a 3-letter beginning blend or digraph (“script”).
Words with a 3-letter ending blend or digraph (“sketch”).
Words with a 3-letter initial and ending blend or digraph (“stretch”).

R Controlled:

This column is for words with short vowel sounds and a spelling pattern of:

Words with vowels whose sounds are altered by the letter “r” directly after the vowel (“car”).
These include words with blends or digraphs (“warmth”).

What do the different long vowel categories in the decodability analysis mean?

V/CV:

This column is for words with long vowel sounds and a spelling pattern of:

Single-letter words such as “I” or “A.”
Two-letter words such as “go” or “me.”

(CC)VCe(s):