**Johnsburg CUSD 12 · Johnsburg, Illinois**

Ringwood Primary School, a public elementary school, used LitLab’s curriculum-aligned decodable texts to close the gap between phonics instruction and fluent, independent reading.

![Ringwood Case Study at a glance](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2026_4_16_ringwood_case_study/image1.png)

## 2025–26 School Year

Ringwood Primary School, part of Johnsburg Community Unit School District 12 in Johnsburg, Illinois, serves approximately 300 students across grades K–2.

Like many schools implementing structured literacy, Ringwood’s educators had adopted UFLI Foundations as their core phonics curriculum, but they faced a persistent gap: students were learning phonics skills in isolation and struggling to translate that into fluent reading.

In the 2025–26 school year, Ringwood partnered with LitLab to provide teachers with curriculum-aligned decodable texts that directly reinforce UFLI lesson objectives.

After one semester of implementation, a comprehensive survey of 20 educators revealed striking results across every dimension measured: student skills, teacher satisfaction, and instructional alignment.

This case study presents the full picture of Ringwood’s implementation: the challenge, rollout strategy, measured impact, and teacher feedback.

---

## Results at a Glance

![Ringwood Case Study Results Survey Graphic](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2026_4_16_ringwood_case_study/image2.png)

## The Challenge: Phonics Skills Without Transfer

Ringwood’s instructional leaders identified a familiar pattern: students performed well during explicit phonics instruction but struggled to apply those skills when reading connected text.

The gap between “knowing the sounds” and “reading fluently” was persistent across grade levels.

![Director of Curriculum and Instruction reading impact quote](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2026_4_16_ringwood_case_study/image3.png)

This is a well-documented challenge in structured literacy implementation. Phonics instruction
teaches students to decode individual words, but the transfer to fluent reading requires extensive
practice with texts that are well-aligned to instruction. Without that bridge, students develop
decoding strategies but struggle to translate it into fluent, automatic reading.

Ringwood needed decodable texts tightly aligned to their specific phonics programs’ scope and
sequence, not decodables aligned to a different phonics program. And they needed students to
actively practice reading aloud those decodables so that they could apply exactly what they’d just
been taught.

---

## The Solution: Curriculum-Aligned Reading Practice

LitLab stood out to Ringwood’s leadership because of its direct, lesson-level alignment to Ringwood’s chosen phonics program, UFLI Foundations. Rather than offering a generic library of decodable texts, LitLab maps every story to specific UFLI lessons, ensuring that students encounter only phonics patterns they have already been taught. This tight curriculum alignment was the decisive factor in adoption.

> “The decodables were able to focus on the UFLI skill of the week… it has strong decodability rather than students being introduced to words they have not been taught to decode yet.”  
> — Dawn Barrett

Beyond alignment, LitLab provided Ringwood teachers with tools to personalize and differentiate instruction. The custom story generator allowed teachers to create decodables featuring student names and interests, a feature that Dawn specifically credited with boosting engagement. The digital student practice mode gave students the ability to read independently on Chromebooks and iPads. And the platform’s print-ready formats made it easy for teachers to send decodable texts home for additional practice.

Critically, 95% of surveyed teachers agreed that LitLab saves them time finding high-quality instructional materials. Time that was previously spent searching for decodables that matched their scope and sequence, often unsuccessfully, was able to be repurposed and put towards students.

## Lightweight Rollout, Wide Classroom Impact

Dawn championed a thoughtful approach for Ringwood’s rollout to best fit their small district size while minimizing disruption and building internal expertise. LitLab offered Ringwood a virtual onboarding at the beginning of the school year. Dawn prioritized this training for Ringwood’s two MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) leaders. These leaders became the school’s resident LitLab experts, and brought LitLab to their teaching staff.

This lightweight approach worked. Ringwood’s teachers reported high ease of use across all dimensions, with 95% of teachers saying that it was easy to find stories, and 85% reporting that it was easy to assign practice aligned to their curriculum

## Flexible Use Across Grade Levels and Settings

One of the most notable findings from Ringwood’s implementation is how naturally teachers adapted LitLab to different instructional contexts across the foundational literacy continuum:


👉 **Second Grade:** Teachers used LitLab decodables primarily as independent center work, giving students the autonomy to read curriculum-aligned texts on their own during literacy rotations.

👉 **Kindergarten and First Grade:** Teachers used LitLab in small-group instruction, reading decodables together with students in guided contexts to scaffold fluency development.

👉 **SPED, Title I, and MTSS:** Specialists used LitLab to supplement intervention sessions. One SPED resource teacher noted that she gives students choices among several LitLab books and that “they like having control over that portion,” building agency alongside skills.

👉 **Multilingual Learners:** Ringwood’s ML teacher reported that her students “are always asking
me to print off more books for them to practice at home,” a strong signal that the texts are accessible and engaging even for students navigating a new language.

👉 **Home Practice:** Multiple teachers reported sending LitLab decodables home with students, extending practice beyond the school day. One first-grade teacher shared that her “students love the decodables and share they practice them often at home.”


---

## Impact: Stronger Student Outcomes and Actionable Data

Teachers reported impact across six dimensions:

| Student Outcome | % Agree |
|----------------|--------|
| Develop stronger phonics and decoding skills | 100% |
| Improve performance on UFLI-based weekly assessments | 94% |
| Stay engaged with reading practice | 90% |
| Build confidence and agency as readers | 90% |
| Improve reading fluency and accuracy | 85% |
| Increase reading comprehension | 80% |

Teachers are seeing LitLab’s impact show up directly on the assessments they already trust. With 94% agreeing that students improved on UFLI-based weekly assessments, the gains are visible in the same formative measures Ringwood uses to track phonics progress.

That assessment signal is reinforced by a broader instructional shift. 100% of teachers agreed that LitLab developed stronger phonics and decoding skills, which supports LitLab’s role in helping students move beyond isolated skill work into real reading.

---

## Student Data That Is Actually Actionable
Teachers were also asked how well LitLab delivers on its core promises to educators. The results confirm strong alignment with instructional priorities:

| Value Proposition | % Agree |
|------------------|--------|
| Content aligns well with our core phonics curriculum | 95% |
| Saves me time finding high-quality instructional material | 95% |
| Supports differentiation in foundational literacy | 95% |
| Improves the quality of student independent practice | 94% |
| Student data helps me monitor and respond to student needs | 92% |

The strongest signal here is how consistently teachers point to data as actionable, not just informative. With 92% agreeing that student data helps them monitor and respond to needs, LitLab isn’t just surfacing progress, it’s tightening the feedback loop between practice and instruction. Teachers can see skill-level performance tied directly to phonics patterns and immediately adjust grouping, pacing, or intervention without needing to triangulate across multiple tools. That shifts data from something retrospective to something operational, embedded in daily instructional decisions rather than reviewed after the fact.

## In Their Own Words: Teacher Perspectives
Teachers were also asked how well LitLab delivers on its core promises to educators. The results confirm strong alignment with instructional priorities:

> “LitLab is a great resource for independent practice with UFLI skills. They are also great books to print and send home.”  
> — 1st Grade Teacher  

> “My students love the decodables. They practice them often at home.”  
> — 1st Grade Teacher  

> “The students seem to really enjoy the books… My ML students are always asking for more.”  
> — ML Teacher  

> “Students are engaged… they like having control over their reading choices.”  
> — SPED Resource Teacher  

> “It’s a great program to practice phonics skills independently.”  
> — 2nd Grade Teacher  

---

## Looking Ahead

Ringwood Primary’s experience demonstrates what happens when practice is tightly aligned to a school’s phonics scope and sequence: students transfer skills from instruction to reading, teachers save time and trust the materials, and the gap between “learning phonics” and “reading fluently” begins to close. Every teacher surveyed agreed that LitLab strengthens students’ decoding skills. Teachers across every role — gen ed, SPED, Title I, MTSS, and multilingual learner — found ways to integrate the platform into their instruction. And students are not just building decoding and fluency skills; they’re building confidence, independence, and a genuine love for reading.

## Methodology

Data collected via online survey administered January 2026 after one semester of LitLab implementation. Twenty (20) respondents across grades K–2, including classroom teachers, SPED resource teachers, a Title I reading teacher, MTSS specialists, a multilingual learner teacher, and a student teacher. Student outcomes and value propositions measured on a Likert agreement scale. Behavioral observations were multi-select. Ease of use measured on a four-point scale. Open- ended responses from site lead collected via structured interview.

See how Ringwood Primary used curriculum-aligned decodables to improve fluency, engagement, and decoding skills in just one semester.

Case Study: Bridging the gap from phonics instruction to independent reading

When it comes to early reading instruction, not all decodables are created equal.

A great decodable text is intentionally crafted so that the _vast majority of words_ align with what students have been explicitly taught, allowing them to successfully sound out and apply new phonics knowledge in context.

Below, we'll unpack the key features of a high-quality decodable using a LitLab story aligned to **UFLI Lesson 13 (/d/):** [Dot and Dad](https://www.litlab.ai/library/cm6fbp55n000hqobkwoxvznqv?sequence=ufli&ref=gallery_item_staff_pick)**.**

### Aligned to a Phonics Sequence

Every strong decodable text is anchored to a systematic phonics scope and sequence, such as **UFLI Foundations** or **CKLA**, ensuring that the words students encounter can be sounded out using previously taught patterns.

For example, if students have learned short vowel sounds and the letters _d_ and _t_, a sentence like _"Dad did it!"_ allows them to apply those skills successfully. This alignment gives students the structure they need to read independently and confidently, without guessing.

Research shows that the **degree of decodability** in a text strongly predicts both _reading accuracy and fluency_. In a large-scale study, **Saha et al. (2021)** found that text decodability uniquely predicted students' oral reading performance, even after accounting for decoding ability.

Across thousands of LitLab stories:

-   **Median decodability:** 96%
-   **All decodables** are aligned to a specific lesson in a phonics scope and sequence (from early CVC to vowel teams)

This tight alignment helps students apply new sound–spelling patterns without encountering untaught ones. Every LitLab story is fully aligned to a phonics sequence, ensuring that most words can be successfully sounded out.

![Example of aligned decodable text 1](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_15_great_decodable/body_fig1.png)

![Example of aligned decodable text 2](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_15_great_decodable/body_fig2.png)

### Focuses on a Target Skill — with Natural Repetition

A hallmark of great decodables is the **intentional density of skill words**.

Decodables should provide natural, frequent exposure to the target phonics pattern being practiced.

For example, if the lesson focuses on **\-ck**, the story might include several words like _duck_, _chuck_, and _tuck_. This repetition gives students multiple chances to apply the same phonics feature in varied contexts, building automaticity without sacrificing story flow.

The best decodables weave these repetitions seamlessly into engaging sentences, so practice feels like _real reading_, not drill.

### Non-Decodable Words Are Pre-Taught

Even the most controlled stories include a few words that can't yet be sounded out — such as _is_ or _the_ (often called **Heart Words**).

Most of the time, these are high-frequency words that have already been explicitly taught within the scope and sequence.

These words should be practiced _before reading_ so they don't interrupt decoding flow.

Pre-teaching them ensures that students can focus on applying the target phonics skill while still experiencing authentic, meaningful text.

![Pre-teaching example](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_15_great_decodable/body_fig3.png)

![Picture supports comprehension](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_15_great_decodable/body_fig4.png)

### Pictures Enhance the Narrative

In well-crafted decodable texts, illustrations **enhance comprehension without replacing decoding**.

Pictures help students connect meaning to the words they're reading and stay engaged, especially when a story includes new or conceptually rich details.

In the LitLab example above, students can decode the word _"it"_ and use the illustration to infer that _"it"_ refers to the jar. The word "_jar_" may not yet be decodable at early levels, so it is not included in the text. The image provides helpful context without serving as a guessing cue.

### Balanced, Engaging, and Teacher-Friendly

A high-quality decodable doesn't just support students. It supports _teachers_, too.

Beyond maintaining strong phonics control (typically **85–95% decodable**) and telling stories that make sense, great decodables make their structure transparent to the teacher.

Teachers should be able to easily see:

-   **Target skill words** — words that include the phonics pattern being practiced (e.g., _duck, pack, back_ for the **\-ck** skill)
-   **Non-decodable "story words"** — words not yet fully decodable but necessary for meaning
-   **High-frequency words** — previously taught sight words that reappear for fluency and familiarity

Clear categorization helps teachers preview texts, plan instruction, and pre-teach strategically, ensuring every story aligns with what's been taught.

**In LitLab,** each story clearly labels its target skill and categorizes all words by skill words, review words, high-frequency words, and non-decodable ("story") words. Teachers know exactly what students will encounter before reading.

This transparency keeps instruction consistent and empowers teachers to use decodables as both a reading and teaching tool, not just a text to hand out.

## Ready to Explore High-Quality Decodables?

A great decodable is more than controlled text. It's _purposeful practice_ that builds confident readers.

At **LitLab**, that balance is built in. Every story is:

-   Aligned to a phonics scope and sequence
-   Verified for decodability
-   Tagged with skill words, high-frequency words, and story words
-   Designed to make phonics practice both _accurate_ and _joyful_

By combining phonics precision, clear teacher supports, and engaging stories, LitLab makes it easy to choose texts that truly match instruction.

👉 **Explore high-quality decodable stories at [LitLab.ai](https://litlab.ai)**

_Written by: Drew McCann, K-3 Literacy Specialist and Head of Learning at LitLab.ai, and Jacqueline Ontell, Elementary Teacher, Special Education & Curriculum Development_

* * *

\[1\] Saha, N. M., Cutting, L. E., Del Tufo, S. N., & Bailey, S. (2021). Initial validation of a measure of decoding difficulty as a unique predictor of miscues and passage reading fluency. _Scientific Studies of Reading_, _25_(5), 404–418. [https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2020.1817093](https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2020.1817093)

Learn the key features of high-quality decodable texts that support student reading success and teacher effectiveness.

What makes a great decodable text?

LitLab was built to make high-quality decodable reading practice effortless for teachers, and that begins with aligning to the phonics instruction schools already trust. For many classrooms, that foundation is **UFLI Foundations**, a research-based phonics program grounded in the **Science of Reading** and widely used across K-3.

This post explains how **LitLab ensures precise, data-verified alignment with UFLI Foundations** through every word students encounter. Using decodability analysis across thousands of stories, you’ll see how **LitLab maintains over 95% decodability throughout the complete UFLI sequence**. The result is simple: teachers get rigorously aligned materials that fit their existing instruction, and students gain quality and engaging reading practice that builds confidence, fluency, and mastery one skill at a time.

## Why UFLI Alignment Matters

[UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) Foundations](https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/foundations/) offers a structured scope and sequence that teaches phonics systematically from simple to complex patterns. Teachers using UFLI need materials that match that progression precisely.

According to research, the level of decoding difficulty in a text is a unique and significant predictor of both miscues and passage reading fluency (_Saha et al., 2021_). In other words, when students encounter phonics patterns they haven’t yet been taught, they’re more likely to struggle with accuracy and fluency during oral reading.

This highlights the importance of tightly controlled, skill-aligned texts—like those in LitLab—where decodability is optimized.

Practicing newly learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) in context helps solidify decoding skills. Research shows that students who practice taught GPCs in decodable texts apply more letter-sound knowledge strategies when reading less controlled or authentic texts later on (_Mesmer, 2008_). In short, highly decodable reading builds transferable skills.

That’s where **LitLab’s alignment with UFLI** makes a difference.

Every UFLI story in LitLab is built around a specific UFLI lesson, carefully controlling for phonics patterns so that students encounter only those they’ve been explicitly taught.

## How LitLab Ensures UFLI Decodability

At LitLab we've developed a **phonics-aware AI assistant** that helps us create decodable stories that adheres very tightly to the target skill and prior skills from the UFLI Foundations scope and sequence. **Each story in LitLab’s Grab-and-Go Decodable Library is created and evaluated by an educator who is an expert in the Science of Reading.**

A cornerstone of this process is ensuring high decodability. What is decodability? Decodability is the percentage of words that can be decoded by a student using the patterns a student has been taught up to that point. This concept is a cornerstone of UFLI Foundations and followed strictly for all LitLab stories.

We measure this using the same phoneme-grapheme correspondence progression defined by UFLI. The result: highly controlled texts that maintain readability, coherence, and instructional alignment.

## The Data: How Decodable Are LitLab Stories?

To quantify how closely LitLab aligns with UFLI, we analyzed thousands of stories across the entire UFLI sequence. The results speak for themselves.

### 1\. Median Decodability by UFLI Skill

How tightly aligned are LitLab’s stories to UFLI’s skills and pedagogy?

![Median Decodability by UFLI Skill](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_10_ufli_alignment/body_fig1.png)

Not only does LitLab offer numerous stories for each UFLI skill, the data above shows that **across all 128 UFLI Lessons, LitLab stories maintain a median decodability above 90%**, with most skills exceeding 95%. Each point on this chart represents the median decodability for stories tagged to that skill, meaning that nearly all words in those stories can be decoded using that skill and prior knowledge.

This demonstrates **consistency across the full scope and sequence**, ensuring teachers can trust that LitLab stories remain tightly aligned from early short vowels through advanced vowel teams and r-controlled syllables.

### 2\. Story Decodability Distribution

How decodable are LitLab’s stories?

![Distribution of Story Decodability](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_10_ufli_alignment/body_fig2.png)

The above figure shows the distribution by decodability for all UFLI-aligned decodables that are available to educators in LitLab’s Grab-and-Go Decodable Library. The higher the count of stories in a decodability bucket, the more stories LitLab has to offer teachers at that decodability level. First, notice that there are no stories in LitLab’s staff-curated grab-and-go decodable library with a decodability lower than 75%. **LitLab’s UFLI-aligned stories maintain a median decodability above 97%**, with fewer than 5% of all LitLab UFLI-aligned stories having a decodability below 86%.

In other words, **nearly all stories are highly decodable**, and even the lowest 5% maintain strong alignment to UFLI’s principles and pedagogy. This provides teachers flexibility to differentiate (beyond skill-level), by using the most controlled texts for early practice or slightly more open texts for fluency and comprehension work.

### 3\. Story Length vs. Decodability

But are all LitLab stories created equal?

![Story Length vs Decodability](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_10_ufli_alignment/body_fig3.png)

The above scatter plot shows the decodability (y-axis) as a function of the number of words in each story (x-axis) on LitLab. The graph shows that **LitLab stories remain consistently decodable regardless of length**. Even as word count increases from early 30-word CVC stories to more advanced 400-word passages, decodability stays above 90%. An analysis shows the correlation between Word Count and Decodability was 0.06, which indicates no significant correlation between these two variables. This means teachers can confidently assign longer stories for fluency and comprehension without compromising their instructional practice.

## What This Means for Classrooms

For teachers, the takeaway is simple: **LitLab fits directly into UFLI-based phonics instruction without adding extra steps or guesswork.** Every decodable story in LitLab has already been analyzed for decodability, tagged by UFLI lesson, and verified to stay within the phonics patterns students have been taught.

Teachers can:

-   **Search by UFLI lesson or skill** to instantly find stories that reinforce that day’s instruction.
-   **Assign or print stories with confidence**, knowing every text meets rigorous decodability thresholds.
-   **Use decodability metrics** to choose the right level of challenge for each group or individual reader.
-   **Create new stories** with LitLab’s story generator, which automatically aligns to the same UFLI skill progression used in the Grab-and-Go Library.

For administrators, this alignment ensures **instructional consistency and data-backed quality** across classrooms. Schools can be confident that all decodable materials, whether created by staff or selected from LitLab’s library, follow the same structured phonics framework. This reduces variation between teachers, supports fidelity to UFLI, and strengthens overall reading outcomes.

In short, LitLab makes it easy to bring **rigorous, Science of Reading aligned practice** to every student. Teachers spend less time searching for the right materials and more time teaching. Students spend more time reading stories that match what they have learned, building both **accuracy and fluency** in authentic, engaging contexts.

Together, UFLI and LitLab provide the **structure and scalability** schools need to turn systematic phonics instruction into confident, joyful reading.

## Ready to See UFLI Alignment in Action?

Explore the full [UFLI-aligned Grab-and-Go Decodable Library](https://www.litlab.ai/gallery/v2?author=staff&sequence=ufli) and see how LitLab supports your district’s literacy goals with precise, consistent phonics practice.

_Written by: Drew McCann, K-3 Literacy Specialist and Head of Learning at LitLab.ai_

* * *

\[1\] Saha, N. M., Cutting, L. E., Del Tufo, S. N., & Bailey, S. (2021). Initial validation of a measure of decoding difficulty as a unique predictor of miscues and passage reading fluency. _Scientific Studies of Reading_, _25_(5), 404–418. [https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2020.1817093](https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2020.1817093)

\[2\] Mesmer, H. A. E. (2008). _Tools for matching readers to texts: Research-based practices_. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

See how LitLab maintains 97%+ median decodability across all 128 UFLI Foundations lessons — with the data to prove it. 

How LitLab Aligns to UFLI Foundations — Backed by Data

When working with early readers, decodable texts are a powerful tool to support phonics-based reading instruction. But even the most carefully constructed decodable story often contains a few words students haven’t yet fully mastered. That’s where previewing (or pre-teaching) comes in. Thoughtfully selecting which words to introduce before reading can make the difference between a choppy decoding experience and a confident, successful read. It is also a way to introduce unfamiliar vocabulary, helping students build strong comprehension of the text.

An analysis has shown that LitLab stories are highly decodable, with an average decodability greater than 95%, leaving just a handful of words in each story that may require previewing or pre-teaching with students. In this post, we’ll share a clear framework for selecting words to pre-teach using LitLab Stories as an example — but the principles apply across any decodable instruction.

## Why Preview Words?

-   **Fluency and confidence:** Removing stumbling blocks allows students to apply their decoding skills smoothly and prevents word guessing.
-   **Comprehension:** Knowing a key word’s meaning helps students follow the story or text without confusion.

## A Framework for Previewing Words

Here are the criteria we suggest when selecting 3–5 words to preview:

**1\. Out-of-sequence words**  
These are words that may be phonetically irregular (said, does, was) or phonetically regular (play, house, take), but haven’t been introduced yet in your phonics sequence. While LitLab stories are highly controlled to include word patterns and sight words already taught, these words sometimes appear in LitLab Stories and other decodables to make sentences more natural.

**2\. Words Critical to Comprehension**  
Sometimes a word is essential for understanding the plot or characters, even if it’s rare or outside the students’ decoding range. Previewing it can have a huge impact on your student’s comprehension of the story.

## How to Preview Effectively

**For vocabulary words:**

1.  Say it aloud and have students repeat.
2.  Show it in context in the story.
3.  Give a short, student-friendly definition.
4.  Ask a question to connect it to their experience.
5.  Optional: act it out or use a quick sketch.

**Out-of-sequence words:**

1.  **Say it** – Say the word and use it in a sentence.
2.  **Hear it** – Stretch out and say each sound you hear.
3.  **Map it** – Match sounds to letters as you write the word.
4.  **Mark it** – Put a heart over the tricky part you must “learn by heart.”
5.  **Show it** – Show students where they will see it in the story.

## Concrete example: Pre-teaching words for a decodable story (Shan Helps Pick Up Trash)

Below is an example from the LitLab Story, [Shan Helps Pick up Trash](https://www.litlab.ai/library/cm8ypen250051l003cqs1e5gz).

![Preview example](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_10_pre-teach/body_fig1.png)

### Steps to Choose Words to Preview

1.  Find vocabulary words that are critical to understanding the story.
2.  Find words that are non-decodable.
3.  Check how many times each word repeats.
4.  Select the words that appear most frequently and are crucial to understanding the text.

#### Step 1: Find vocabulary words

-   compost
-   recycle

#### Step 2: Find non-decodable words

-   compost
-   day
-   earth
-   recycle

LitLab will do this step for you! You can find non-decodable words in the “Words to pre-teach” section of the vocabulary guide.

![Vocabulary guide](https://storage.googleapis.com/litlab-assets/blog/2025_10_10_pre-teach/body_fig2.png)

#### Step 3: Note the frequency of the words

-   compost (1x)
-   day (1x)
-   earth (1x)
-   recycle (1x)

#### Step 4: Select words to pre-teach

-   **compost** — Why? crucial to understanding the text
-   **recycle** — Why? out-of-sequence word with a prefix that is also crucial for understanding
-   **earth** — Why? out-of-sequence word

If a word only appears one time and you think it might be familiar to students, or it's not crucial to the meaning of the text, you may want to choose a word that appears more frequently to preview instead.

## Keep It Simple. Keep It Purposeful.

Previewing doesn’t mean front-loading every unfamiliar word. In this example, we didn’t preview the word “day” even though it is an out-of-sequence word because it is a familiar word often used in the classroom.

Use this time to support meaning and confidence — not to rob the story of its decodable power. With practice, you’ll quickly learn which words need to be pre-taught and which should be left for students to decode.

Want to try it out? Browse our LitLab Stories and try previewing three words before reading with your class. Tag us with your annotated story!

👉 Explore decodable stories at [LitLab.ai](https://www.litlab.ai/)

_Written by: Jacqueline Ontell, Elementary Teacher, Special Education & Curriculum Development_

A practical framework for selecting 3–5 words to preview so students read decodable texts with confidence and comprehension.

Literacy insights for district and school teams

All Posts

Case Study: Bridging the gap from phonics instruction to independent reading

What makes a great decodable text?

How LitLab Aligns to UFLI Foundations — Backed by Data

How to Choose Which Words to Pre-Teach for Decodable Texts