Teach My Kid To Read

The Road to Decode

Teach My Kid to Read (TMKTR) launched The Road to Decode in 2019 to enlist librarians to learn about, stock, and provide parents, caregivers, and educators with information and resources that help all children, especially early and struggling readers, learn to read. TMKTR was the first organization to promote sound aloud or decodable books, the lesser-known resources that help all children become skilled readers. Before The Road to Decode, librarians were mostly unfamiliar with decodable books. As such, decodable books and similar resources were difficult for families of early and struggling readers to access. Working with the public libraries, The Road to Decode enables all children to have equal access to resources that help them learn to read.

After participating in The Road to Decode, 100 percent of librarians stated they are likely or highly likely to learn about and stock decodable books.

The Road to Decode stresses the importance of decodable or sound aloud books because they enable children to practice the phonics skills they have just learned. Like anything, practice is the only way to improve, and children with reading issues like dyslexia need lots of practice to become fluent readers. Decoding skills are on the road to word recognition or “cracking the code.” The other road that children need practice in is language comprehension. Language comprehension provides the background knowledge so children can understand what they read. To indicate the spread of The Road to Decode, we ask librarians to feature an infographic that shows the two roads that lead to skilled reading.

Initially, The Road to Decode took place in October in honor of Dyslexia Awareness Month. Due to the importance of access and education about decodable books, The Road to Decode has become a year-round initiative. Join us as partners in community literacy solutions. Sign up today!