Reading isn't always easy

I was in grade six when I was first swept into another world by a book. I had to keep reading, whether it was by torchlight under the fold of my blankets, or with the slop of my cereal at the breakfast table before school (or being berated by my parents for reading at dinner!). If the truth be told, I’d been a disruptive and inattentive student, and always in trouble. It was Ms Coates, my grade six teacher who first corrected my course (and a few others who kept correcting), but since then, books have been changing the way I think, giving me sustenance and on plenty of occasions helping me escape for a while.

But learning to read is not always easy. Still as a skill it is one of the most transformative skills in life, opening up possibilities and worlds. When learning to read, the stories need to be engaging, and when you are early in the journey, structured.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife Julia is a speech therapist, and spends her days helping primary school kids with language difficulties. A few years ago she became frustrated with the lack of texts to help kids learn in a structured manner. Specifically books that make decoding the words easy (known as decodable texts), and gives kids practise on what they have learnt as  they go along.

She spent COVID lockdowns (and many weekends and school holidays) writing the texts and building resources to help teach; she engaged an amazing painter to illustrate the books to ensure they were visually appealing.  And after working out how to navigate the publishing world the books are in print. They look beautiful, are funny and hidden beneath all of that is a structured approach to learning. There are twenty books in the series, and a workbook. And really excitingly have been short listed for the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award.

If you know someone who might benefit from using these books, then encourage their school to check out her website decodablejewels.com.au. You can find some free samples and resources there if you want to check them out yourself.