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The Nelson Decodable Readers series empowers teachers to transform young learners into confident lifelong readers.
210 fiction and non-fiction books available for purchase now.
Nelson Decodable Readers at a glance
Nelson Decodable Readers is a comprehensive series designed to teach systematic synthetic phonics. This series equips teachers to make phonics instruction accessible and effective.
Year levels
Foundation - 2
Available formats
Print and Digital
Shop the series
Nurture a love of reading
Our 210 fiction and non-fiction decodable books ignite a love of reading, promoting curiosity and learning through captivating narratives, relatable characters and engaging images.
Boost teacher confidence
Teachers are supported with before- and after-reading activities in each print or digital book. Easily fill gaps in current program and extend resources with customisable packs.
Grounded in research
Aligned to the Science of Reading and informed by experts, our Scope and Sequence ensures a scaffolded approach to reading success.
Streamline your preparation
Optimise classroom instructions
Confidently deliver phonics instruction from the basic code through to the extended code
Each Nelson Decodable Readers text displays target grapheme-phoneme correspondences, as well as the full title list for the related set. Target sounds appear frequently, reinforcing phonics skills and building reading confidence.
Expansive range of fiction and non-fiction texts
Build knowledge
Develop comprehension skills
A wide range of texts enables students to practise their decoding skills as well as build knowledge and curiosity, becoming skilled and confident readers.
Non-fiction texts cover a range of age-appropriate topics, providing an engaging reading experience.
Build real-world connections
Engage students with captivating storylines
Empower students with diverse characters
Nelson Decodable Readers feature a range of diverse and engaging characters, providing young readers with relatable characters to increase their engagement.
Reinforce phonics skills
Engaging text features
Prepare young learners to move beyond decodables
Our decodable texts help develop strong reading skills in students. Continuous text, a range of punctuation and sentence features, and text features such as speech bubbles and labels enhance the reading experience for young learners.
Practise phonics and decoding skills
Build prior knowledge
Irregular high-frequency words are identified
Each book's pre-reading activities enhance reading comprehension by prompting students to activate their prior knowledge. Before reading, students practise decoding skills, reviewing target sounds and target words. Irregular high-frequency words are listed for discussion and practice before reading the text.
Develop reading comprehension and explore beyond the text
Build vocabulary knowledge
Foster growth in reading confidence
Each book's after-reading activities include discussion questions for comprehension and critical thinking, focusing on literal, inferential and moving beyond the text questions. Additional activities extend vocabulary and provide more opportunities for practising target sounds, and words.
Identify student learning needs
Get data-driven insights into reading progress
Inform your teaching plans
Effortlessly identify your students' reading skills and plan their next steps with our Teacher Diagnostic Assessment Tool. Use our free and downloadable resource to test what students already know, identify reading gaps, and align them with the right stage in the Nelson Decodable Readers series. Download here.
210 fiction and non-fiction decodable books are available in print and via our online library.
Our easy-to-access online library can save you time and engage your students. Sign up for a free trial to see for yourself!
Find the perfect set of resources wherever you are in your phonics journey
Our expert learning consultants can help you select targeted phonics resources to support classroom instruction. Create your own custom value packs or enhance your students' decoding skills using our set and classroom packs.
Discover our collection of informative professional learning videos
These videos have been created with our literacy expert Jacinta Conway, who has over two decades of experience in teaching and leading inclusive education in primary and secondary schools.
Educational Consultant and Learning Intervention Specialist
In-depth research into early child language acquisition, in line with science of reading research, informed the Nelson Decodable Readers phonic progression that incrementally and systematically builds students' phonics ability.
This progression incorporates a strong focus on brain development research – in particular, 'the reading brain' and child language development – with a specific focus on 'speech sounds' and their various representations in print form.
More information on the research underpinning Nelson Decodable Readers can be accessed here.
Yes, a Phonics Scope and Sequence and a Spelling and Morphology Scope and Sequence can be accessed here.
As with many decodable reading programs, Nelson Decodable Readers follows a carefully developed Scope and Sequence. Most programs have small differences in the order in which they introduce phoneme-grapheme correspondences. You can correlate Nelson Decodable Readers to other decodable programs by downloading the Nelson Decodable Readers Scope and Sequence document here.
Yes, the Nelson Decodable Readers align with the requirements of the Australian Curriculum: English V9.
Nelson Decodable Readers Sets 1–14 are developed for students in the first two years of primary school.
The Nelson Decodable Readers Teacher Diagnostic Assessment Tool is a free, downloadable resource designed to be a quick and easy screening tool for teachers to see what students already know, identify any gaps and plan for what students are ready to learn next. This tool will help teachers place the students at the correct stage of the Nelson Decodable Readers series.
You can download the Teacher Diagnostic Assessment Tool at the below links:
Levels 1–5
Levels 6–9
Levels 10–14
A student's phonics knowledge should be assessed several times throughout the year to help inform instruction.
The Nelson Decodable Readers Teacher Diagnostic Assessment Tool includes a small bank of pseudo words (non-words). These words are included because students cannot recognise the words from memory, so they are a good way of tracking the sounding out and blending skills of students.
Nelson Decodable Readers include a range of engaging fiction and non-fiction texts in every set. Tightly controlled decodable vocabulary and the careful inclusion of high-frequency words support the sequence of phonemes and graphemes taught. Each book includes pre-reading and post-reading activities, including comprehension questions (literal and inferential).
Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box Decodable Story Books provide a range of engaging fiction texts with minimal teacher support provided in each book. These books also include controlled vocabulary to support the sequence of phonemes and graphemes taught, but with fewer instances of the focus sound/s and fewer decodable words than Nelson Decodable Readers. The Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box Story Books follow the Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box Scope and Sequence.
Yes, you can send Nelson Decodable Readers home for students to further practise and consolidate their skills. The decodable book/s sent home should only contain the letter–sound knowledge explicitly taught.
Synthetic Phonics is a method of teaching children to read. The word 'synthetic' refers to 'synthesising' – that is, blending together. Phonics refers to the connection between individual speech sounds (phonemes) and their written representations (graphemes), organised in a logical sequence. A student who learns to read using synthetic phonics links graphemes to phonemes and blends them together.
Decodable books are texts that allow students to consolidate and practise their understanding of explicitly taught letter sounds and challenging words, including high-frequency words.
High-frequency words are the most frequently used, or most common words, in the English language, such as 'the', 'was', 'am', 'of', 'and' and 'a'. High-frequency words are included in decodable books and should be taught explicitly. Refer to the Nelson Decodable Readers Scope and Sequence to review the decodable and irregular high-frequency words used throughout the Nelson Decodable Readers books.
Within the Nelson Decodable Readers series, 'challenging words' are words that contain new sounds and graphemes not yet taught, or that don't follow ordinary phonemic or spelling rules. Each title lists 'Challenging Words' on the inside front cover for pre-teaching and discussion.
Phonological awareness is one of the five essential elements of reading. It is the foundation for phonics. Phonological awareness is an awareness of the sound structures of language. This includes being able to hear syllables, rhymes and individual speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonological awareness provides us with the crucial skills that allow us to learn how to read.
Phonemic awareness is considered a sub-category of phonological awareness, which is one of the five essential elements of reading. Phonemic awareness is purely auditory. It focuses the listener on identifying where the individual speech sound (phoneme) is placed in a word. A student with developed phonemic awareness skills can hear, identify, blend, segment and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
Phonics is one of the five essential elements of reading. It refers to the connection between individual speech sounds (phonemes) and their written representations (graphemes), organised in a logical sequence. These graphemes are made up using the 26 letters of the English alphabet.
Fluency is one of the five essential elements of reading. It is the ability to read accurately and expressively. When students are fluent readers, they recognise the correct sequence of letters/combination of letters (graphemes) that represent each speech sound (phoneme) within a written word. When reading fluency is achieved, there is no cognitive load associated with reading any more, and the reading is as easy as listening.
Vocabulary is one of the five essential elements of reading. Vocabulary is recognising and understanding a wide variety of words when reading. Vocabulary also plays an important role in comprehension.
Comprehension is one of the five essential elements of reading. It is the ability of students to make meaning from what they are reading. The Nelson Decodable Readers enable beginner readers to begin practising and developing their comprehension skills. Each book includes literal and inferential questioning.
Access a complimentary Nelson Decodable Readers eBook, which you can use in your classroom today (valued at $9.95 AUD).
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