A new school year approaches and more school districts implement state-mandated evidence-based reading instruction, the literacy crisis is front of mind. The alarm bells are still ringing in the wake of the release of a National Assessment of Educational Progress report—colloquially known as the nation’s report card—earlier this year, showing that two-thirds of fourth graders were not reading at the NAEP’s standard in 2024.
As a result, educators and parents have been seeking effective tools to help students practice the foundational language skills being taught under the science-of-reading framework, which emphasizes teaching phonics and other skills in a structured progression. Decodable books—simple texts focused on phonics and phonemic awareness—are key for teaching beginning readers how to segment words and blend sounds to form words, thereby “decoding” texts. Demand for these books has grown across the school, library, and trade markets. We spoke with several publishers that are either strengthening their positions in the decodable book space or entering it with innovative projects.
Going all in
At Ann Arbor, Mich.–based Cherry Lake Publishing Group, decodable books have their own imprint, Cherry Blossom Press, which first took root in 2018. The move was inspired by one of the company’s established authors, Cecilia Minden, who is the former director of the Language and Literacy Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Cecilia made the case very strongly about the need for phonics-focused early readers at a time when they were not the ‘in’ thing,” says Amanda Gebhardt, editorial director at Cherry Lake Press. “We wanted to work with her to bring book joy and success to learning how to read.”
Over the past several years, Gebhardt says, “we went all in on decodability,” calling on Minden and author and reading specialist Elizabeth Scully, one of Minden’s former graduate students in the Harvard program, to help lead the effort. (For PW’s q&a with Scully, see p. 22.) At the heart of Cherry Lake’s charge, Gebhardt says, “we’re looking for beautiful books that are fun to read, that build kids’ confidence, and that can support many different instructional models in classrooms or different programs, but at the same time, provide stepping stones of independent reading.”
With more than 180 titles, Little Blossom Stories is the largest series at the imprint and features fiction books divided into various skills categories. The In Bloom series of beginning readers with chapters and the Code Breakers chapter books with dyslexia-friendly font (written by Gebhardt) extend the fiction offerings, while Little Science Stories and What I Eat are among the early nonfiction and concept series that add another 44 titles. “The goal is to have enough books in each category and skill level to drive student choice,” Gebhardt notes.
“One of the things that sets us apart,” Gebhardt says, in addition to the books’ educational theory pedigree, “is that we only use agented children’s illustrators for our decodables. Because of our relationship with our trade imprints Sleeping Bear Press and Tilbury House, we have access to the designers as well as the illustrators who allow these books to come to life at a depth that you wouldn’t necessarily have in a story with very simple words.”
Outside of Cherry Blossom, Cherry Lake has also published decodable text across its other imprints. The company has partnered with World Book to create the eight-volume Frameworks of Geography decodable graphic novel series for the Cherry Lake Press imprint. “The books explain geography vocabulary, but the surrounding text is decodable, so the books become 70% decodable,” Gebhardt says. And the 45th Parallel Press imprint includes an eight-book nonfiction set called The Breakdown, which layers decoding strategies with comprehension skills, featuring four titles each in the Weird Space Science and Weird Animal Science series.
The hi-lo bridge
Sarah Forbes, London-based publisher of DK Learning, sees her division’s new wave of decodable books as a critical bridge for struggling readers. “There’s real hope that the science of reading is going to help with the
literacy crisis,” she says. “But in the meantime, I was very concerned for children who maybe missed that phonics instruction in kindergarten, grade one, grade two, and then they get up to 10 or even 14 years old and can’t read, or they’re having to read books that they would see as being for babies. Anybody with any empathy could imagine how humiliating that would feel. There’s something about reading a book that looks like what your peers are reading that can help encourage children and spark that love of reading, so we were really trying to think of where we could plug some of the gaps.”
One of those solutions has come in the form of the Against the Odds adventure series of six hi-lo chapter books for ages 10–14, which feature decodable text, dyslexia-friendly fonts and backgrounds, and discussion questions. The first two titles, Animal Attacks and San Francisco Earthquake 1906, which were released in April, focus on morphology, and Forbes says their blend of compelling story lines, relatable characters, short chapters, and age-appropriate illustrations has earned positive feedback already. “The phrase that I love hearing from educators and librarians is that they ‘passed the backpack test.’ Kids aren’t ashamed to be seen with them.”
Decodables first became a sizable category for DK Learning in 2022 when it acquired educational publisher Phonic Books, giving it a core list of several hundred decodable books organized in series for both beginner and catch-up readers. DK and Phonic Books have partnered to develop the DK Super Phonics line of products for children ages three to seven, which includes the eight-book set My First Decodable Stories Pet Shop Panda as well as workbooks, a card game, the oversize visual reference title My Big Book of Phonics, and A Parent’s Guide to Phonics.
“There are so many strands to the science of reading,” Forbes says. “We want to make sure that we’re not just addressing the decodability part, but that we’re really bringing the vocabulary building, the knowledge building, everything that we can to address the problem.”
Diverse decodables
Diversity and representation have driven Lee & Low’s publishing program since its inception in 1991, and its entry into decodable books also bears these hallmarks. This month, Lee & Low introduces the Drumbeat Decodable Book Collection, the first Indigenous authored and illustrated phonics titles available in the U.S., produced in collaboration with First Nation–owned Indigenous Education Press, located on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario. The initial five titles by Sandra Samatte, illustrated by Julian Grafenauer, focus on short vowel sounds and are being released under Lee & Low’s Bebop Books imprint, where editor Kandace Coston leads their development. A second set of eight books spotlighting long vowel sounds is scheduled for publication in spring 2026.
“We knew that we wanted to do a decodable series of books focused on structured literacy, but we did not want to enter that space until we truly knew the market and the need, and could figure out how to do something very different from the other products out there,” says Jill Eisenberg, VP of curriculum and literacy strategy and business development at Lee & Low. “When our editorial director Jessica Echeverria came across the new line that Indigenous Education Press and sister company GoodMinds.com was about to launch, we were very excited to learn more.” As Lee & Low had worked with GoodMinds on other projects over the years, it wasn’t long before the teams from all three companies met to discuss the mission of the series and a potential plan to bring it to the U.S.
Indigenous educator and author Samatte, who is also CEO of Indigenous Education Press, says her ongoing interest in education trends, and strong educator demand, spurred the creation of the Drumbeat books. “When we started going to book shows with our other titles, people were always asking, ‘Do you have decodables?’ And I decided that I would write some.” Her time as a classroom teacher and writer of curricula and leveled readers, as well as her own lived experience, informed the process. “I wanted to make sure it was culturally relevant, that you’re learning how to decode words, but you are also learning about who we are as a people,” she adds.
Drumbeat Decodables have had a warm reception in Canada, where they were released last year, and Samatte notes that IEP has gone back to press several times on the first two sets. Early feedback in the U.S. has been positive, too, according to Eisenberg. The Reading League, an educational nonprofit dedicated to advancing evidence-based reading instruction, listed the Drumbeat collection on its website. And to spread the word further, Lee & Low will present a webinar on August 27 as a deep dive into the books, during which senior literacy manager Katie Potter and Dezi Lynn from the National Indian Education Association will talk about building foundational literacy skills with contemporary Indigenous and Native American continent.
Seeking new voices
Scholastic’s trade division is home to the Bob books, one of the OG decodable series, which Scholastic began publishing in 1994 and which has more than 11 million copies in print. Recent developments include a redesign and the launch of a spin-off preschool line, My First Bob Books.
But Scholastic Education has been busy on this front, too. “The decodables market has been fueled by the recent focus on the science of reading, and decodables are now viewed as a vital part of literacy instruction,” says Jessica Wollman, SVP, content and instruction, classroom and library publishing. She notes that Scholastic Education has rolled out three decodable series in the past four years to meet this need: Short Reads Decodables, Read to Know Text Sets, and Our Stories Decodables. These series join other resources within the Scholastic Ready4Reading Scope and Sequence.
The Our Stories Decodables collection, which launched last fall, consists of 24 books representing diverse children and their families. In an unusual approach, these titles are written by students and alumni from Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, Spelman College, Texas A&M University, and the University of Oregon, alongside Scholastic editors.
“One recurring issue we heard from educators was that students struggled to connect with the decodable texts available in their classrooms, making it harder for them to enjoy reading,” Wollman says. “In response, we set out to create a new line of books designed to meet this need—engaging, relatable texts that help all students see themselves as readers. We invited education students and alumni from various institutions including Historically Black Colleges or Universities to submit applications to Scholastic Education, to become writers for this collection.”
A panel consisting of Scholastic literacy experts and other academics and specialists in the field reviewed the entries and selected a team of writers. Those who made the cut “collaborated closely with Scholastic’s in-house literacy team to craft books that are highly decodable, supporting early reading development,” Wollman says, adding that great care was taken throughout the process to preserve the “authentic voice and perspective of each writer.”
Though making decodable books that are highly effective is an important goal for the Scholastic Education team, Wollman notes that everyone is equally passionate about “creating decodables that span compelling topics and relatable stories—books that help students reinforce essential literacy skills but also help students foster a love of reading.”
A new trade tide
Parents and caregivers in the market for books that support their children’s emerging reading skills may well see more trade titles that explicitly spotlight phonics and decodable text. Jill Santopolo at Philomel is on that path with her recent acquisition of the Read to Me series by Lucy Ruth Cummins, which parents and children are meant to read together. Each spread in the books features a more complex text for parents to read on the left, and on the right a simpler line of decodable text for kids to read. “It’s a way to create stories that are really fun for kids who are just learning how to read, because the parents can add that complexity to it, and the kids can still be reading,” Santopolo says. “It’s also a book that encourages adults and children to read together, because you need to have an adult there with the kid to read the story.”
The idea for this project was hatched close to home for both author and editor. “Lucy and I both have kids who are at the getting-ready-to-read or just-started-reading age,” Santopolo says. “And we were talking about the fact that everybody we know with kids is buying the Bob books. The Bob books are great, but what are some other alternatives? How could we do this in a cool, interesting way, to help parents reinforce what their kids are learning at school?”
The first five books, focusing on short vowel sounds, are scheduled for summer 2027, and Cummins and Santopolo are consulting with reading specialists during the titles’ development. “Our hope is that if these take off, we will do the next levels so that kids can use this series as they go from emerging readers to more confident, fluent readers,” Santopolo says. “What’s also great about these books is that they’re really funny. Funny is having a moment, and decodables are having a moment, and hopefully it all comes together and works really well and helps kids learn to read.”
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Four Questions for Elizabeth Scully
We spoke with reading specialist and former classroom teacher Elizabeth Scully about her experience creating decodable books.
