Reading Resources

This resource page offers a curated selection of strong options in reading and phonics. While not exhaustive, it highlights essential books, programs, and websites that align with the science of reading.

Beginning Phonics Books and Links

Phonics Pathways, goes to 4th grade level, a bit of spelling information.

Florence Akins’ free to print Word Mastery, goes to 3rd grade level, starts with easiest letters to blend.

Blend Phonics, 1st grade level, free from Don Potter, his Blend Phonics page includes fun supplements.

Siegfried Engelmann, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, excellent blending instructions.

University of Florida Literacy Institute Toolbox, free lessons, games, & stories, goes to 2nd grade level.

Marilyn J. Adams Ph.D., Phonemic Awareness in Young Children, for Pre-K to 1st grade, activities and games.

Vanessa Peters YouTube Phonics Lessons, watch and learn, can use pencil and paper instead of workbooks.

40L’s Consonant and Vowel Charts & Cards, to help with learning and looking up sounds.

40L’s Vowel Team Charts, for learning spelling patterns of vowel teams.

Decodable Books

The decodable book list from The Reading League.

Speflabet’s decodable book list

The I See Sam to print and the I See Sam online decodable program. 

How to Teach Phonics

40L’s beginning readers page

Reading Rockets phonics and decoding page

Lindsay Kemeny, 7 Mighty Moves, how to teach phonics in K - 3 classrooms. 

All of the books in the Beginning Phonics section above have how to teach phonics instruction as included in the books. The book Word Mastery also has a short section about teaching phonemic awareness.

Remedial Phonics Books and Links

James Williams, We All Can Read, 3rd Grade and Above, includes nonsense words.

Miscese R. Gagen, Back on the Right Track Reading, use card stock to make letter tiles.

Marcia Henry, Words, integrates phonics, spelling, and word study with word roots and prefixes.

40L’s Syllables Spell Success lessons.

Don Potter, Natural Phonics Primer, helpful for building fluency with phonics basics.

Don Potter’s Natural Phonics Primer website.

40L’s pages for remedial students, and for teens and adults.

40L’s vowel and consonant charts, for looking up sounds and their sound/spelling patterns.

40L’s Vowel Team Charts, for learning spelling patterns of vowel teams.

40L’s Greek and Latin Word Root Bingo, for learning Greek and Latin roots.

Dyslexia Resources

Nina Traub & Frances Bloom, Recipe for Reading, manual for program—use whiteboard to teach

Keda & Harry Cowling, Toe by Toe, incudes nonsense words, structured repetition, multi-sensory.

Voyager Sophris Rewards, for older students who know basic phonics. 

Harry Cowling, Word Wasp, for both reading and spelling.

Barton Reading, Reading and Spelling.

Apples and Pears Spelling, includes morphology.

Nessy dyslexia page, includes testing and screening information.

40L’s dyslexia page

Spanish Language Resources

Libro Primario in English and Spanish without pictures, 60 pages, 296 KB.

Libro Primario in English and Spanish with pictures, 100 pages, 9.7 MB.

American Public Media, Cómo ayudar a su hijo a aprender a leer.

40L’s Español page and its English Translation, how to use Spanish to better learn to read English.

Spelling Resources

Susan Anthony, Spelling Plus, most common 1,000 words arranged by rule and phonetic pattern. 

Susan Anthony, Spelling Dictation, for those who need more practice with these 1,000 words.

Susan Anthony, Homophones Resource Book for students who need more practice with homophones. 

Nessy, free eBook with basic spelling rules.

Apples and Pears Spelling, includes morphology. 

Words by Marcia Henry. Integrates phonics, spelling, and word study with word roots and prefixes.

40L’s Spelling Lessons include several levels of spelling, first teaching the basics and then morphology. 

40L’s Syllables Spell Success Lessons include spelling while teaching phonics and morphology.

Writing Resources

Sentence composing, focuses on writing a variety of sentence types.

Grammar composing, teaches a bit of grammar while focusing on writing stronger sentences.

Writing Skills. A 3 book series that covers writing basics, each book designed for different grade levels.

From Talking to Writing, covers all areas of writing, detailed instruction, designed for struggling writers.

Institute for Excellence in Writing. Video based writing instruction with options for all grade levels.

Morphology and Word Root Resources

Apples and Pears Spelling, includes morphology. 

Marcia Henry, Words, integrates phonics, spelling, and word study with word roots and prefixes. 

William Draper Swan's 1851 Spelling Book. Word Roots begin on page 93.

Jessie MacMillan Anderson's 1897 A Study of English Words. 

Manik Joshi’s Dictionary of Root Words. 

etymology online, an online etymological dictionary 

40L’s morphology page

Tests

40L Reading Grade Level Test.  A quick screening grade level test, from 1st to 12th grade level.

40L Reading Fluency Test. A quick reading fluency screening test that uses nonsense words.

MWIA. A reading diagnostic test that compares the speed and accuracy of reading holistic, or sight words vs. phonetic words.

Reference Books

Margaret Bishop, The ABC's and All Their Tricks, phonics and spelling reference, well organized.

Denise Eide, Uncovering the Logic of English, phonics and spelling reference, well explained, organized and arranged in a different manner than “The ABCs and All Their Tricks.”

Louisa Cook Moats, Speech to Print, history, structure and function of language, and how to use this information in classroom teaching.

Nathaniel Hansford, The Scientific Principles of Reading Instruction A summary of the current scientific consensus on reading and writing instruction, well researched and incudes a wide range of topics— phonemic awareness, phonics, morphology, vocabulary, "sight words", fluency, comprehension, spelling, writing, programming, sound walls, and intervention.