• Online Stories Free Printable Phonics Readers Passages
• Online Stories Free Printable Phonics Readers Kindergarten
• Short Phonics Stories Free Printables

• Printables for Phonics Readers and Folks with Dyslexia. FREE Downloadable and Printable. Free Phonics and Dyslexia Printables for Learning to Read. Join Tup the dog as Jan and her friends take him on a rambling walk to the library where he will participate in “Read to a Dog.” Try and catch the wayward chicken by pretending to be a plant.
• Free printable phonics and reading worksheets for pre k, preschool, and kindergarten kids. The letters & sounds: same – different beginning sounds, same – different middle sounds, same – different ending sounds. Rhyming words, short vowel words, and reading short stories.

Free Printables. Phonics Printables. A to Z Phonic Song And Printable; Short Vowel “a” Roll and Read Game; Phonics Reading: Long vowel “a” Phonics Reading: Long vowel “e” Phonics Reading: Long vowel “i” Phonics Reading: Long vowel “o” Free Phonic Chart: -ow- sound; Write Words with the “ow” Sound; Color word activity.

What does it take for a struggling reader to finally read a short vowel story? In the attached short vowel story free printable (below), a beginning reader must know letter sounds, short vowels and a handful of sight words. While this seems simple enough, some kids will still need guided reading tactics to read the story from beginning to end.

I’ve created these stories (like the short vowel story free printable in this post) for young kids that struggle with reading. There aren’t enough phonics books at the K-2 level. If your student is struggling, you’ve probably been to the local library. As you perused the aisles, you likely grew frustrated: none of the books available really teach reading.

At local stores and libraries, you find books that claim to be “Level One” or even “Pre-reading Level.” Yet, when you open these books, to your dismay, you find a great variety of phonics sounds. None of the books teach phonics systematically.

You begin to wonder if Level One really is designed for kids that already know how to read.

For the free short vowel story, click the link later on in this post.

Online Stories Free Printable Phonics Readers Passages

If so, where are the books that teach reading? There are none, you resolve.

It is true that there are very few books that teach reading explicitly and systematically. Many of the books that are designed with explicit, systematic phonics principles are shut off from consumers like you. They’re part of expensive “therapy” programs and curricula available only to schools.

If you’re here, you might wonder: where are the books that actually teach young kids to read?

As I started a reading clinic in CA, I began working with many kids that were far, far below grade-level.

As I worked with struggling readers, I had great difficulty finding books for my students. Some of the books I got were incomplete, meaning the publisher started with a systematic method, and then suddenly, as if on a whim, transferred over to the whole-language global reading approach.

First, Reading Elephant does NOT use whole language methods. Whole language is a method of teaching reading that expects kids to just get it. In whole language, kids are immersed in reading and are expected to spontaneously break the written code. This method failed a generation of students in California, drastically dropping the reading scores for an unlucky few years of kids in the 1990s.

The whole language method has been shown to be ineffective in a meta-analysis done by the National Reading Panel. Unfortunately, this method still holds a powerful hold on many educators imaginations, making them believe that kids simply need to “look at pictures” and “guess” to learn to read.

Most books for young readers are designed with whole language methods. The failure of the whole language method is well documented. Therefore, many whole language book distributors slap “phonics” on their covers, claiming to use phonics while really using its antithesis.

I was surprised that there were almost no books available to the public that are truly systematic and phonics-based.

Online Stories Free Printable Phonics Readers Kindergarten

I realized that some learn to read books used phonics for the first twenty or so books and then leaped into whole-word unsystematic teaching methods—as if the child had suddenly, magically mastered all the missing phonics sounds.

Thus, I began writing my own phonics stories. It will take me some time to get them all up on ReadingElephant.com. But, right now, I’m happy to offer my short vowel story free printable called, “The Red Cat.”

Click the pdf link below. Here it is:

Be sure to click the above link for the free short vowel story pdf.

Reading Elephant offers many short vowel stories in our shop.

Right now, the Reading Elephant offers 31 systematic phonics books. After a child reads through short vowels and some consonant digraphs, he is ready to read, “The Red Cat.”

Short vowels are:

a_ as in apple

e_ as in elephant

i_ as in igloo

o_ as in octopus

u_ as in up

Our printable phonics books help kids learn to read with a gradual, step-by-step approach.

Consonant digraphs are:

sh as in wish

th as in bath

th as in then

ch as in chop

_tch as in batch

_ck as in deck

_ing as in king

_ng as in long

_ang as in sang

wh_ as in when

Short Phonics Stories Free Printables

Does your child know how to read short vowels words like hat, bin, sat, let? Or consonant digraph words like chat, ship, and when? If so, then he’s ready to read the short vowel story free printable, “The Red Cat.”

As always, make sure your student reads phonetic words sound-by-sound. In addition, explain the story through discussion questions. Phonics stories use limited language. Therefore, sentence structures can sound awkward. Your student will be delighted that he can successfully read the story, but make sure he understands it too.

“The Red Cat” is a story about a boy who finds himself stuck inside on a snowy day. The boy is bored and longingly looks out the window at the pristine snow. He asks his mom if he can go outside and play. To his delight, she lets him. Outside, he stumbles upon a cat. The boy thinks it’s a regular domestic cat. Unbeknownst to him, he’s actually encountered a wild bobcat. He plays with the bobcat and is charmed by his new companion. He asks his mom if he can keep the cat. His mom is shocked and (slightly) horrified that her dear boy has just been prancing around the snow with a wild bobcat! When the boy discovers he’s just been playing with a bobcat, he’s wild-eyed with wonder.

As you discuss the story, you can build your student’s vocabulary. Since the story involves freshly fallen snow, you can introduce pristine. The snow is pristine because it is new, no one has yet walked on it, and the color remains pure. Explain that lakes and rivers can also be pristine if they are clear. Since the boy mistakes the bobcat for a domestic cat, you can introduce domestic. The boy might think the cat is a domestic cat, or house cat, because it is much smaller than a mountain lion. Explain the difference between domestic animals and wild animals.

Remember that the focus of early reading instruction needs to be on phonics. Therefore, keep your conversation efficient. Ultimately, systematic phonics (and not conversation) will give your student reading independence: the remarkable ability to read on his own. Thus, discuss the story to pique his interest, introduce vocabulary words, and then get back to reading.

Focus on sound-by-sound reading. Unless, of course, it’s a sight word! Since sight words break the phonetic code, help your student read them. Here are the sight words in “The Red Cat”: there, are, have, said, was, the, from, to, want. “Snow” is not really a sight word, but since it’s a short vowel story, treat “snow” as a sight word too.

I hope your student enjoys the short vowel story free printable, “The Red Cat.”

In this post, I offer a free ai and ay phonics printable, and answer the question: is English spelling really all that irregular?

In this ai game, kids can review and practice ai and ay phonics. The “ai” sound is in words like: mail, rail, main, rain, tail, trail, wail. The ay sound is in words like: bay, day, spray, tray, May, bay. When you teach ai and ay phonics, you’re helping your student master long vowels.

Here’s the ai and ay phonics game:

In the above ai and ay phonics game, I follow the principle of constant review and interleaving.

The ai and ay sounds are relatively common in both small words like “sail” and bigger words like “maintain.” Without ai and ay phonics, kids will have a gap in their knowledge. If they’re missing a common phonics unit, they may revert to guessing. Develop your student’s decoding skills thoroughly. That way, they don’t fall into the habit of looking at the first letter and guessing the word.

Though English is arguable the hardest European language to learn to decode, it is still an alphabetic language (Dehaene, 2009). By definition, alphabetic languages are decodable. With phonetic knowledge, English readers can decode words they’ve never before seen in print, like mantic or confabulate.

It may seem like English is highly irregular because sight words (words like does, they, would, could) are very common. There are only about 120 sight words young kids need to memorize. However, we use sight words all the time. These words are descended from Old English and they make up about “62 percent of the words most used” (McWhorter, 2003, pg. 95).

Don’t be fooled though. Sight words are used commonly, but they only make up less than four percent of English (Moats, L. & Tolman, C. 2009). That means, words that are irregular are only a small percentage of the total number of words in English. Since we use this small percentage so often, we begin to think English is more irregular than it actually is.

To put this another way, we fail to see that about 96 percent of total English words have phonetic regularities (Moats, L. & Tolman, C. 2009).

Again, there are only about 120 or so common sight words that young kids need to memorize. Thus, these words can be memorized systematically. Furthermore, even sight words have phonetic components. For example, the “th” in “they” is phonetic and the “w” and “d” in “would” is phonetic as well. Even supposed irregular words can be decoded with pieces of the code.

Again, only about four percent of English is truly irregular (Moats, L. & Tolman, C. 2009). This is a shockingly low percentage. Though we use words descended from Old English all the time, most words in our lexicon can be decoded sound-by-sound. This means that if a child is armed with sight word knowledge and phonetic knowledge, she can read.

If a child lacks phonetic knowledge, she will not be able to read words that inject real meaning into language. For example, pretend a child only knows sight words. This child reads a sentence:

The _____ _________ _______ __ through the ___ ___ into ___ mother’s _____.

The child can read the sight words in the above sentence. However, with only sight word knowledge, the meaning is indecipherable. With phonetic knowledge, a child can read the full sentence:

The baby kangaroo crawls up through the fur and into his mother’s pouch.

How foolish to toss out code-based learning just because less than four percent of English words are irregular!

As a teacher, ai and ay phonics will ensure that your student has a thorough understanding of long a sounds. Ai and ay phonics are a crucial stepping stone toward independent reading. Use the printable ai and ay phonics Read and Color activity pdf link above so your student can review olds sounds and learn ai and ay phonics.

References:

Dehaene, Stanislas. (2009). Reading in the brain: the new science of how we read. Penguin.

McWhorter, John. (2003). The Power of Babel: a natural history of language. Perennial.

Moats, L. & Tolman, C. (2009). English Gets a Bad Rap. Retrieved from: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/english-gets-bad-rap