Free Decodable Books
Help Bring Reading Routines To Life
If you’ve used Readtopia or ReadtopiaGO, you have already seen firsthand the power of helping students become more confident, capable readers. With Monarch Reader, educators have another flexible, personalized tool to elevate core literacy routines, build fluency, and help every student develop as readers, especially those with complex support needs. Decodable books are yet another tool to help all educators unlock the most from their students. Whether you’re looking to align with phonics instruction or foster self-directed exploration, Monarch Reader gives you the tools to meet your learners where they are.
As a teacher favorite in Monarch Reader: decodable book collections are designed to reinforce phonics instruction and build foundational reading skills.
Decodable texts are written explicitly so learners can read nearly every word learned during phonics instruction. These texts are often short books or passages comprising letter-sound patterns that learners can recognize. This means they focus on applying newly acquired phonics skills. With each new book, they get the chance to practice what they’ve learned and build confidence in their ability to read independently.
Free Decodable Books in Monarch Reader
While the narrative books we often enjoy with our students are engaging and fun, they typically include rich vocabulary, longer sentences, and sometimes repetitive phrases (like “Brown bear, brown bear”). These features make them great for shared reading, but they also introduce many words with spelling patterns that emergent readers haven’t yet learned to decode, leading to a reliance on guessing from context clues.
Decodable texts take a different approach: they limit unfamiliar spelling patterns and reinforce the skills that students are being taught. This supports the development of decoding, a skill that sticks with students and helps them tackle unfamiliar words in the future. That said, decodable texts shouldn’t be the only books students encounter, but they are a critical part of foundational early reading instruction.
In addition, they give beginning readers the opportunity to apply their phonics knowledge in connected texts rather than isolated words or drills. This matters because connected text reading helps move students beyond word-by-word decoding and begins to build fluency. Thanks to the Science of Reading, educators are increasingly recognizing the importance of systematic phonics and alphabet instruction, applying that knowledge in real reading experiences to build students’ long-term reading success.
Monarch Reader currently features a series of 24 decodable books, organized into four collections:
- Learning Letters
- Learning Letters Plus (2–3 letter words)
- Learning Letters Plus (3–4 letter words)
- Learning Words
These collections align with the alphabet and the initial six lessons in all components of Readtopia’s Alphabet to Phonics approach, from Learning Letters through Learning Words, and follow a sequential order that supports student progress. Educators can even search for books by phonological features like “short A” or “CVC,” or tag new books to make discovery easier for the entire community.
What Makes Decodable Books Appealing?
Books featuring decodable text are uniquely powerful because they are written with a purpose. Every word reinforces phonics patterns students are actively learning. That means:
- Less reliance on guessing or pictures
- More practice applying decoding skills
- Increased confidence and independence
How to Make Books Accessible
Monarch Reader was designed with universal access in mind, and Smartbox has partnered with Building Wings to launch Monarch Reader as an accessible app available within Grid 3 for Windows. Students can read using:
- Touch screens
- Switches
- Eye gaze technology
There are also customizable display settings, including font size, background color, layout, and light/dark mode, as well as special book collections curated for Grid so that all learners have access to materials that are uniquely suited to their needs.
Whether during independent reading, shared reading, or self-directed reading, you can make Monarch Reader a component of your daily literacy routines.
You can also use strategies like print referencing during shared reading to highlight letters, words, and concepts of print—critical early literacy skills for emergent readers. And because books can be reread as many times as needed, students benefit from repetition with variety, a core principle of emergent literacy development. “We can get kids spending much more time engaged in reading and less time faking it,” says Dr. Karen Erickson, who contributed to building Monarch Reader, as she explains the benefits of decodable books in the webinar “Integrating Monarch Reader with Readtopia and ReadtopiaGO.”
Writing Your Own
One of the most empowering features of Monarch Reader is the ability to create your own books.
You can:
- Upload images (via Flickr)
- Personalize text with students’ names or interests
- Align spelling patterns with current phonics instruction
This is more than customization. It’s differentiation that bridges the gap between interest and ability. Imagine writing a decodable book about ceiling fans for a student obsessed with fans. That’s not just engaging—that’s transformational. “You can . . . be using illustrations and choosing topics that are going to really attract your students and keep their attention as they’re doing the hard work of figuring out how to read the words,” says Dr. Erickson.
Educators can also build predictable chart books, tag new books by phonological features, and search the free library for books to enhance the themes or topics you teach.
What's Coming Next?
At Building Wings, we’re just getting started. Our team is working on even more ways to support your students’ alphabet knowledge, phonics instruction, and early reading development, within Monarch Reader and beyond.
Stay tuned for exciting updates, new book collections, and expanded tools to make early literacy instruction more powerful, inclusive, and personalized.
