A structured approach

Decodable books in digital format that are appropriate for older students make up the reading component of the Comprehendit resource.

As students read, they press buttons to hear the author speaking to the reader, guiding them through the thinking to comprehend, most especially building the skills to infer the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary and to make inferences within and beyond the text.

This is followed for many titles by a heavily scaffolded writing assignment, requiring students to think about the text from another point of view.

Level 1 Books

Focus on decoding cvc words, s suffix, and double final consonant (toss, well, add)

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f, N-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All
Gas!	cvc	F	228	All
A Nap in the Sun	cvc	F	285	All
Rat gets Fat	cvc	F	294	All/ J
Gus the Pup	cvc + s suffix	F	307	All/ J
The Rag Pet	cvc + s suffix	F	382	All /J
Wag Wag	cvc + s suffix	F	188	All/ J
Go Sam Go	cvc + s suffix	F	335	All / J
Bugs in the Jam	cvc + double final consonant	F	341	All
Nan is O.K	cvc + double final consonant	F	284	All/ J
Mum’s Big Mess	cvc + double final consonant	F	219	All
A Kip in the Sun	cvc + double final consonant	F	305	All
Yum said Mum	cvc + double final consonant	F	326	All
My Bus	cvc + double final consonant	F	562	All/ S
A Tad	cvc + double final consonant	F	233	All
A Monster Problem	cvc + double final consonant	F	556	All
Rot in a Log	cvc + double final consonant	F	661	All/ S
A Mix Up	cvc + double final consonant	F	728	All/ S
For my Kids	cvc + double final consonant	F	528	All/ S
A Pet for Todd	cvc + double final consonant	F	682	All/ S
To Get to my Job	cvc + double final consonant	F	740	All/ S

There are no writing assignments at this level. The illustration activity requires students to visualise their reading, to make basic inferences. Stick figures are acceptable.

Code:

All: appropriate for all ages
All/J: especially suited to younger students, ages 6 – 8
All/ S: especially suitable for older students

Level 2 Books

Focus on decoding cvc words, s suffix, and double final consonant (toss, well, add)

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
A Bad Vet	th	F	474	All	1
Jess the Cat	th	F	543	All/ J	1
Into the Mud	th, sh, ch	F	1096	All	1
Cob and Sod	th, sh, ch	F	1169	S	1
Pepper in the Batter	Adds ing, ed, er suffixes	F	716	All
Nag Nag	Adds ing, ed, er suffixes	F	775	All	1
A Winner	Adds ing, ed, er suffixes	F	744	J
Polly and the Gas Man	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	1019	All	2
A Pet Fox	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	S 1*	739	All	2
Pig and Dog	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	719	All/ J
The Problem of a Soccer Mad Dad	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	905	All/ S	1
Josh and his Bus	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	413	All/ J	1
Sam and the Piglet	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	602	All	1
My Big Rig	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	823	All
The Illness of Tilly the Pig	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	S 2*	893	All/ S	1
When a Mozzy Bit Me	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	N	908	All/ S	1
Riff-Raff and Fuddy-Duddy	ing, ed ,er and y suffixes	F	905	All/ S	1

1* The behaviour of foxes, told through the challenges of attempting to keep one as an indoor pet.

2* A true account of one family’s experiences keeping kune kune pig

Level 2 writing.

This level introduces the concept of a paragraph. Paragraphs are simple: advantages in one paragraph, disadvantages in the next; before and after, and the like. But before they get to this, most students will need to come to grips with sentence structure. We strongly recommend working through the first sections of The Sentence Book, up to the section on compound sentences. Some students will need to spend a term or more coming to grips with basic sentence structure before they are ready to advance.

Even though these books are very basic decoding, many students will need to start here. Students who have advanced decoding skills but whose comprehension has not developed apace should start here, learning basic comprehension ways of thinking. In general, easy, effortless, unconscious decoding means the student can dedicate most or all of their cognitive energy to comprehension.

In addition, students who have not yet learnt to use paragraphs effectively should start their writing journey at this level.

Some students will need to work through most of the assignments presented here. Others will grasp the concepts quickly and will soon be able to make a start of the assignments that relate to the level 4 and 5 books.

Level 3 Books

Focus on ck, more simple suffixes

Title	Phoneme	Fiction Non-f Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
The Old Tom Cat	ay	F	282	J
The Tin and Box Man	ay	F	713	All/ J	1
Stuck	ck; le	F	604	All/ J
Cop and Robber	ck; ay	F	657	All	1
A Hat for the Rugby	ck; ay and y as in my	F	642	All/ S	2
The Rock Cutters	ck; ay, -all words	F	828	All/ S	1
All for a Better Shell	ck; le, en suffixes	N	1375	All/ S	1
Rats!	ck; ay, y as in my, ow; le and led	F	571	All/ J
A Letter in a Bottle	ck; le, en suffixes	S 1*	1001	All/ S	1
Mr. Ducket’s Ferret	ck; le, et, en suffixes	F	1147	All/ S	1
Picking up Kitty	ck; le, et, en suffixes	F	874	All	1
A Spy in the Colony	ck; le, et, ly suffixes	S 2*	1689	All/ S	1
A Shipwreck	ck, -all words; le, et, en suffixes	F	1297	All/ S	1
Fishing for Cod	Ck; le, et, en suffixes	S 3*	1403	S	1

1* The true story of a stowaway on Captain Cook’s vessel but imagined from the stowaway’s point of view. Details the fears of many sailors who believed the world was flat.

2* Based on a scientific paper about the threats to an endangered colony of gulls, and the role of rabbits in that threat. Told from the point of view of a gull chick, who becomes a spy to discover the problem of rabbits.

3* A true account of the collapse of the cod fishery in the North Atlantic, as told through the stories of several generations of one family of fishermen.

Level 3 writing

This level continues to develop the concept of a paragraph. The books are on more sophisticated themes than in level 2. Paragraphs in the writing assignments are basic and heavily scaffolded. But before they get to this, most students will need to come to grips with sentence structure. We strongly recommend working through the first sections of The Sentence Book, up to and including the section on compound sentences. Some students will need to spend a term or more coming to grips with basic sentence structure before they are ready to advance.

Even though these books are very basic decoding, many students will need to start here. Students who have advanced decoding skills but whose comprehension has not developed apace could start here, learning basic comprehension ways of thinking. In general, easy, effortless, unconscious decoding means the student can dedicate most or all of their cognitive energy to comprehension.

In addition, students who have not yet learnt to use paragraphs effectively but need more sophisticated reading material could start their writing journey at this level.

Some students will need to work through most of the assignments presented here. Others will grasp the concepts quickly and will soon be able to make a start of the assignments that relate to the level 4 and 5 books.

Level 4 Books

Focus on initial blends and simple suffixes

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f, Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
My Gran	Initial blends	F	714	All	2
Griff and his Sled	Initial blends	F	997	All	1
The Maths Test	Initial blends, ay, ow and y as in my	F	752	All	1
Dilly Duck	Initial blends, introduces ng	S	1549	All	1
Little Red gets Cunning	Initial blends; ng	S	940	J
Getting Dinner	Initial blends; ng	F	749	All
Chicken Licken	Initial blends	F	484	J
Rugby	Initial blends, y as in my	S	456	All
Little Butterfly	Initial blends; y as in my	S 4*	663	All	1
A Trip to the Rugby	Initial blends, ar phoneme	F	195	J
Party in the Dark	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	F	662	All	1
Daddy Long Legs	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	N	1169	All/ S	1
A Frog Pet	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	S 5*	1109	All	1
The Starfish	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	N	1014	All/ S
The Battles of an Arctic Fox	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	N	1351	All/ S	2
Pufferfish	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	N	1225	All/ S	1
The Little Chick	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	F	567	All
The Ant and the Cricket	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	F	916	All
Mr. Rat and Mr. Frog	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	F	790	All
I am a Tracker	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	S 6*	2178	All/ S	1
How they Play Cricket	Initial blends, ar, ng phonemes	N	2448	All/ S
Stuck, Jammed, Trapped	Triple initial blends, str, scr, spl	S 7*	1816	S	2

1* About mallard ducks but told from the point of view of one family who endeavoured to bring up a lost duckling.

2* How young foxes actually learn to hunt, told in fictional format.

3* The myth of the invention of Rugby at Rugby School, as told by fictional students.

4* The book details the process butterflies must go through once they emerge from a chrysalis to enable flight. In this story, an old moth explains the process to a rebellious butterfly.

5* Details the habitat, diet, life cycle and more of frogs. The fictional element explains why this makes them unsatisfactory household pets.

6* A true account of the role and skills of search and rescue trackers. The story is about an imagined search for a child missing in a forest. My son is a trained search and rescue volunteer and helped with the details in the story.

7* This book explains the feeding and other habits of the giants of the ocean, the blue whale, the sperm whale, the colossal squid and giant Pacific octopus, as told by a giant octopus who, through a surfeit of curiosity, finds himself stuck in the gullet of a blue whale.

Level 4 writing.

Inferencing becomes more sophisticated, in both reading the book and the following writing assignment. This level introduces the concluding sentence in body paragraphs. Students are also introduced to transition words. Lead/ topic sentences are provided for each paragraph.

Whereas the lead sentence tells the reader what this paragraph is about, what the writer will be telling the reader, the concluding sentence summarises the main point made, what the writer has told the reader. At this stage, it is sufficient for students to restate the lead sentence in a different way, learning the role of this sentence in the process. Suggested concluding sentence starters are provided for each paragraph, but these are suggestions only. Students should be encouraged to generate their own.

Transition words are a key way to create cohesion and flow in writing. Their role is to make following the writer’s train of thought easy for the reader. They tell the reader how this new thought, new sentence or new paragraph is connected to the previous one.

Students are introduced to transition words in The Sentence Book. Introduce this section before beginning this level and continue the exercises in tandem with the writing activities. The balance of specific practice with Sentence Book exercises and in the writing assignments will depend on the needs of your students.

Students who have a basic understanding of the role of paragraphs could start here.

Level 5 Books

Focus on final blends and simple suffixes

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f, Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
Camping	Final blends	F	413	J	1
Me with the Paddles	Final blends, ol words	S 1*	1265	All	2
Agnes and Mrs. Smith	Final blends	F	623	All
Mumps	Final blends, l-controlled vowels	F	485	J
Under the Bed	Final blends, l-controlled vowels	F	1006	All
The Hut	Final blends, triple initial blends	F	804	J
The Godwits	Final blends, ol words	N	938	All	1
The Shag	Final blends	N	762	All	2
The Chest in the River	l-controlled vowels	F	1005	All	1
Sally Mon	Final blends, triple initial blends	S 2*	981	All/ S	1
Mum’s Garden Plan	Final blends	F	830	All
The Robins	Final blends, triple initial blends	N	1476	All
One Man and a Donkey	Final blends, triple initial blends	N	1596	All/ S	1
My Days in the Skidder Gang	Final blends, triple initial blends	S 3*	1277	All/ S
My Days as a River Pig	Final blends, triple initial blends	S 3*	1645	All/ S	1
Ndotto the Elephant	Final blends, double suffixes (ered)	N	1670	All/ S	1
River Otter, Sea Otter	Final blends, l-controlled vowels	N	2611	All/ S	1
A Jar of Jam	Final blends, double suffixes (erly)	F	1137	All
Jin the Otter	Final blends, double suffixes (ering)	S 4*	1576	All	1
Getting to the Summit	Final blends, double suffixes (ingly)	F	1395	All/ S
Whiskers Black	Final blends, double suffixes (ened)	S 5*	2508	All/ S	2

1* About the ubiquitous paddle crab, as told by one of their number.

2* The life cycle of salmon, with a particular focus on their need to navigate up and down rivers. What happens when there is one or more hydro dams on the river? The story follows the life of one female salmon.

3* These two books are about logging virgin forest in early Canada, and then the challenges of floating the logs down the river to the mill. Told as excerpts from a diary of one of the men involved.

4* Jin the Otter escaped from the Auckland Zoo in 2006. This is an account of her capture, exaggerated in parts.

5* Whiskers Black is fictional, but his story is typical of the many swaggers who walked the rural roads of New Zealand and Australia in depression times, seeking farm work, usually in return for food and a spot in a barn to sleep. A forgotten part of our history.

Level 5 writing

These books are all on themes suitable for students in years 5 – 10. Inferencing becomes yet more sophisticated. Lead/topic sentences are still provided for each paragraph, but students are expected to generate their own concluding sentences. Students are expected to use transition words effectively.

Whereas the lead sentence tells the reader what this paragraph is about, what the writer will be telling the reader, the concluding sentence summarises the main point made, what the writer has told the reader. Suggested concluding sentence starters are provided for each paragraph, but these are suggestions only. Students should be encouraged to generate their own.

Transition words are a key way to create cohesion and flow in writing. Their role is to make following the writer’s train of thought easy for the reader. They tell the reader how this new sentence or new paragraph is connected to the previous one. Students are introduced to transition words in The Sentence Book. Introduce this section before beginning this level and continue the exercises in tandem with the writing activities. The balance of specific practice with Sentence Book exercises and with the writing assignments will depend on the needs of your students.

Students who have a basic understanding of the role of paragraphs but need more sophisticated reading material could start here.

Level 6 Books

Focus on a_e, i_e. o_e;, ee, ea; ce

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f, Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
Nessy the Monster	a_e	F	1328	All/ S	1
The Quake	a_e	S 1*	731	All/ S	1
Mandy’s Problem	a_e, i_e	F	374	J
The Snake Problem	a_e, i_e, o_e	F	1058	All	1
The Limpet	a_e, i_e, o_e	N	1018	All	1
Diving with a Manta Ray	a_e, i_e, o_e	S 2*	2337	All/ S	2
The Whale Stranding	a_e, i_e, o_e; triple initial blends	S 3*	1390	All	1
The Leaf Cutter Ants	ee, ea	N	759	All
An Emerald Pendant	ee, ea; or, igh	F	1847	All/ S	1
Libby Riddles	ee, ea, or	N	1717	All/ S	1
Taking Control of the Nile	ee, ea, or	S 4*	1868	All/ S
Hitler and his Beetle	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	N	1408	S	1
Rin Tin Tin	ee, ea, war words	N	1425	All/ S
Gold	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	S 5*	1404	All/ S	1
The Glider	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	N	2362	S	1
Shark Attack	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	S 6*	1858	S
A Runaway’s Tale	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	S 7*	2521	S	2
Ice Cream	ee, ea, or; basic prefixes	N	2622	S

1* How an earthquake can alter the landscape, sometimes dramatically, as told by confused trampers.

2* About manta rays but told by a diver who rescues a ray from a tangle of fishing net. The ray allows the narrator to ride on her back, follow her day, as rescued mantas really do.

3* A true account of one whale stranding but told through fictional characters.

4* The advantages and significant disadvantages of damming the Nile in Egypt, as told by three fictional characters who explain the various impacts on them.

5*A true account of gold mining in Central Otago, but the characters are fictional.

6* This is about the porbeagle shark, what is known about it, and what scientists have yet to learn. That part is non-fiction. Fictional scientists are on a mission to discover what they can, but the data suggests that much of what they believe is incorrect. The readers know something that the scientists do not; students must sort out the confusion. A lesson in scientific methodology.

7* The story of this runaway slave is largely, but not completely, based on a true story. The book explains the condition of slaves in southern U.S states.

Level 6 writing

Books at this level are basic decoding. Most are non-fiction and are on themes suited to students in years 5 – 10; those marked S only are on sophisticated themes and recommended for intermediate and secondary students only.. The inferencing component is heavily emphasised. The writing assignments teach the most sophisticated elements of writing, and appropriate for students in years 7 – 10 only. (Less demanding writing assignments are in production).

The writing assignments teach the most sophisticated elements of writing. Students are introduced to analysis, and to further cohesive devices, both within and between paragraphs.

Paragraphs now have four components. Students are now required to write their own lead/ topic sentence. Evidence and examples come next, generally the facts of the case. This is followed by analysis, making sure that the reader follows your argument, and ‘gets’ the relevance of this evidence. The final sentence summarises this paragraph, and students now learn techniques for linking one paragraph to the next, to segue (pronounced seg-way).

Books labelled ‘all’ are suitable for year 5 and 6 students. The writing assignments are generally too advanced for these students. A less demanding writing assignment is in production.

The analysis component should answer the following:

Why is this important?

Why does this matter?

How is this evidence relevant to the main point you are making, in this paragraph and in the whole essay?

What are my readers supposed to be thinking or feeling now?

Make sure they are thinking what you want them to think. This can all be summarized in two words: So what?

These two words appear at the beginning of this section of every body paragraph. This should mean that nothing is left to chance, that the readers follow the argument easily, and are left convinced by what they have been told. There should be no space for the reader to become lost, confused, skeptical or unconvinced.

Cohesion

Students should, by now, be very adept at using transition words to link sentences. They are now introduced to other techniques, most especially the ‘Known before New Contract’. This means a sentence begins with a previously introduced thought, and then the new information is added. This technique is discussed in The Sentence Book, on p. 79.

Students are also introduced to ‘pointer words’, most especially this, that, these and those, and their role in linking sentences. It is easy to overdo transition words.

Students should be encouraged to use a mix of these cohesive devices within a paragraph.

Level 7 Books

Focus on vowel digraphs

Title	Phoneme	Fiction, Non-f, Non-f as story	Word count	Senior, Junior, All	Writing
The Stingray	ai	N	561	All
Adrift with a Shark	ai, oa	F	2939	All/ S	1
Pink Candles	ai,	S 1*	2041	All/ S	1
Uncle Max’s Big Problem	oa, ai	F	354	J
My Holiday	ai, oa, oo	F	2158	All
Catching Flying Fish	tch	N	728	All
The Beaver	dge	N	1455	All/ S	1
The Christmas Truce	u_e, are, ire	S 2*	1582	All/ S	1
The Humpback Whale	ou	N	1068	All/ S
The Runner	ou	N	1682	All/ S	2
Living in a Yurt	ur	N	1368	All
The First All Blacks	ur, ir, ear as in earth	N	1512	All/ S	1
Turtles in Peril	ai, oa, oo, ou, ir, ur, tch, dge	N	1692	All/ S	2
The Elephant Problem	o as u, as in money	N	943	All/ S	1
This Life of Mine	r-controlled vowels, incl air, ear etc	N	2542	All/ S
The Hunter and the Bear	r-controlled vowels, incl air, ear etc	S 3*	2871	All/ S	1
The End of the War	ew	N	1056	All
Fast and Slow	ew, aw	N	1416	All	1
Rocket Boosters and a Horse’s Backside	au, oi, ow as in town, simple prefixes	F	1667	All/ S	1

1* A true account of conditions in coal mines in the early 1800s, when candles were used to light the mines. The characters and their specific challenges are fictional.

2* Allied and German soldiers called a truce on Christmas Day in WW1, with events as described in this story. Written as a letter home by one allied soldier, the letter was begun before the truce and completed after it. This soldier’s thoughts are fictional.

3* An account of grizzly bear lifestyle and behaviour, as told by a hunter who experienced an all-too-close encounter.

Level 7 writing

Books at this level are basic decoding. Most are non-fiction and are on themes suited to students in years 5 – 10. The inferencing component is heavily emphasised. The writing assignments teach the most sophisticated elements of writing, and appropriate for students in years 7 – 10 only. (Less demanding wring assignments are in production).

Students are introduced to analysis, and to further cohesive devices, both within and between paragraphs. Paragraphs now have four components. Students are now required to write their own lead/ topic sentence. Evidence and examples come next, generally the facts of the case. This is followed by analysis, making sure that the reader follows your argument, and ‘gets’ the relevance of this evidence. The final sentence summarises this paragraph, and students now learn techniques for linking one paragraph to the next, to segue (pronounced seg-way).

The analysis component should answer the following:

Why is this important?

Why does this matter?

How is this evidence relevant to the main point you are making, in this paragraph and in the whole essay?

What are my readers supposed to be thinking or feeling now?

Make sure they are thinking what you want them to think. This can all be summarized in two words: So what?

These two words appear at the beginning of this section of every body paragraph. This should mean that nothing is left to chance, that the readers follow the argument easily, and are left convinced by what they have been told. There should be no space for the reader to become lost, confused, skeptical or unconvinced.

Cohesion

Students should, by now, be very adept at using transition words to link sentences. They are now introduced to other techniques, most especially the ‘Known before New Contract’. This means a sentence begins with a previously introduced thought, and then the new information is added. This technique is discussed in The Sentence Book, on p. 79.

Students are also introduced to ‘pointer words’, most especially this, that, these and those, and their role in linking sentences. It is easy to overdo transition words.

Students should be encouraged to use a mix of these cohesive devices within a paragraph.

Segue (pronounced Segway)

This was originally a musical term, referring to a piece of music, perhaps a tune, seamlessly turning into a different tune without a break, linked by a few notes or bars in common. The transition is smooth, barely perceptible, accomplished without a pause, with no interruption. Some students will almost certainly be able to offer examples, but failing that, this very brief video demonstrates segue with two ‘The Sound of Music’ clips:

In writing, segue means the same thing. It may mean that a few words in the concluding sentence hint at the theme of the following paragraph, seamlessly linking the ideas. “In summary, …, but there is a second, possibly better, option.” “In brief,…, although this is not always the case.” “Clearly, …, but in practice there are pitfalls to this approach.” This tells the reader what the next paragraph is likely to be about.

Starting the following paragraph with a transition word has the same effect. “However,…” tells the reader that they are about to learn a different point of view. “In addition, …” tells them something else.

Students should be encouraged to use a mix of these techniques. It is not always possible or practical to segue from one paragraph to the next, but where feasible, this smooth flow from one idea to the next makes comprehending the passage so much easier.