Access to high-quality, culturally relevant educational materials is crucial for helping children develop strong reading skills. However, a lack of reading resources and support can hold back young learners in many parts of Asia and the Pacific, making it hard to build good reading habits.
To address this gap, the Asia Foundation’s Let’s Read team is excited to introduce a new series of English decodable books designed specifically for young children learning to read. These books are free for all children, giving every learner, regardless of background, a chance to become confident and skilled readers.
This new series of English decodable books are grounded in the science of reading and centers on stories about the rich, diverse cultures across Asia and the Pacific. The books are created in collaboration with talented authors and illustrators from seven countries, bringing cultural stories to life and inspiring a love of reading.
What are decodable books?
Like training wheels on a bike, decodable books are essential as children build their phonics and decoding skills. They help children practice the sounds of letters and words as they learn to read. The books use simple, easy-to-read words with regular spelling patterns, so children can gradually build their reading skills, with each carefully structured to increase in difficulty over time, with plenty of repetition to help reinforce what they’ve learned.
Key features of our new decodable book series:
- 30 Culturally Relevant Books: Each book showcases unique cultural elements of different Asian and Pacific countries, providing children with a global perspective while practicing their early reading skills.
- 24 Engaging Reading Activities: These activities promote play and exploration in the real world, connecting reading with their everyday lives.
- A Scope and Sequence: Aligned to a systematic phonics scope and sequence that starts with foundational letter-sound correspondences, like short vowels and consonants, and progresses to more complex relationships, like blends (ex: spin, bend) and vowel-consonant-e (ex: cake, hike).
We believe these books will provide an excellent opportunity for children to practice their English reading skills, helping them read independently. More importantly, they will allow children to learn about and appreciate the different cultures around them, creating skilled readers and more compassionate, globally-minded people.
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