Stop Making Kids Wait for A–Z to Read

If you’ve ever taught kindergarten, you probably know this feeling: You’ve spent weeks working on letter sounds. Your students can point to m and tell you it says /m/. They can do the same for s, a, t, and a handful of other letters. Then, you put a book in front of them, and suddenly they freeze.

They know some of the code, but they still feel like they’re waiting for permission to actually read.

The good news is that they don’t have to wait. Research on early reading development tells us that children can begin applying the letter–sound knowledge they already have long before they’ve learned the entire alphabet.

The Alphabetic Principle Really Is the Foundation

We spend so much time teaching letter–sound relationships for a reason. The alphabetic principle, which is the understanding that written letters represent spoken sounds in predictable and systematic ways, is one of the most well-established foundations of learning to read (Armbruster et al., 2003).

The National Reading Panel’s landmark review (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) concluded that learning the alphabetic system and applying it are essential for beginning readers. It also found that systematic phonics instruction is significantly more effective than unsystematic or absent phonics instruction. The NRP states, “Beginners cannot become skilled readers if they do not know the system.”

Research has consistently shown that early alphabet knowledge, including knowledge of letter names and sounds, is strongly associated with later literacy development. The National Early Literacy Panel (2008) identified alphabet knowledge as one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of later conventional literacy skills. At the same time, foundational work from researchers such as Marilyn Adams (1990) has helped establish why understanding the relationship between print and speech is so important for learning to read.

Letter–sound knowledge gives children the foundation they need to begin unlocking written language.

So yes, we absolutely want to teach the alphabetic principle explicitly, systematically, and thoroughly.

Where Instruction Can Get Off Track

The problem often comes down to timing.

In some classrooms, the alphabet becomes a checklist students are expected to finish before they’re given meaningful opportunities to read. The thinking goes something like this: Learn all 26 letters and sounds first, finish the alphabet, and then start blending words.

That sequence might sound logical, but children can begin using their phonics knowledge much earlier.

Research on how children develop word recognition describes a "partial alphabetic phase," in which children read and decode words using only some of the letter sounds they know, well before they've learned the whole alphabetic system (Ehri, 2020). They don't need all 26 letters to begin combining two or three sounds and reading real words.

In fact, giving students opportunities to apply what they know right away can help strengthen the connection between phonics instruction and actual reading. Instead of spending weeks learning sounds in isolation, students begin to understand why they are learning those sounds in the first place.

They’re learning them so they can read. Phonics instruction and reading practice develop together.

Kids Need to Feel Like Readers While They’re Still Learning the Code

Think about what happens when a five- or six-year-old sounds out sat or mat for the first time using just a few letters they’ve recently learned.

That moment is more monumental than a phonics exercise.

For the first time, that student has taken sounds they learned during instruction and used them to unlock a word on the page. They’ve experienced what reading actually feels like.

That kind of early success matters. A child begins to see themselves as someone who can read while they’re still learning the rest of the code.

This is also where finding the right decodable text becomes especially important.

Many decodable books are written for students who already have a larger bank of letters and phonics patterns under their belts. That can make them difficult to use with a kindergartner (or any beginning reader) who has only been introduced to the first few sounds in the scope and sequence.

A book may technically be labeled “decodable,” but decodability depends on what the student has already been taught.

If a student only knows a handful of consonants and one or two vowels, the text they’re asked to read needs to reflect that. Early readers need opportunities to work with those sounds in simple VC and CVC words they can successfully blend.

That gives students a chance to practice exactly what they just learned while experiencing the satisfaction of reading real connected text.

This Is Exactly What the Let's Read Alphabet Anthologies Are Built to Do

That early stage of reading development is exactly why we created the Let's Read Alphabet Anthologies.

Instead of waiting until students have learned every letter sound, the anthologies give them opportunities to begin blending and reading connected text as soon as they know enough letters to form VC and CVC words.

Across Let's Read 1 and Let's Read 2, students have access to 56 decodable passages, with 28 titles in each anthology.

The texts develop alongside students’ phonics knowledge. As new sounds, blends, and high-frequency words are introduced, the passages gradually become more complex while continuing to spiral in previously taught skills. Students keep practicing what they’ve already learned while adding something new.

The anthologies were written specifically to follow UFLI’s scope and sequence for alphabet skills, which makes them easy to pair with what’s already happening in your phonics block.

Each anthology includes a table of contents that maps every title to the skill(s) it targets. Teachers can quickly see where each passage fits within their instructional sequence and choose a text that matches what students have already been taught.

That means less time wondering whether a passage is truly decodable for students that week and less time searching for extra reading practice that actually matches the lesson.

The high-frequency words in the anthologies also mirror UFLI’s high-frequency word list, helping reduce unexpected words that can interrupt an early reader’s attempt to decode a passage independently.

The passages are 100% decodable when following the UFLI scope and sequence, using wholly decodable words along with previously introduced high-frequency words. Primary educators trained in systematic phonics instruction wrote them, and professional illustrators created pictures so the stories feel engaging and inviting for young readers.

The goal is to give students meaningful reading practice from the start, even when their growing phonics knowledge includes only a small number of letters and sounds.

Give Your Students a Reason to Believe They're Already Readers

Strong instruction in the alphabetic principle is essential, but knowing isolated letter sounds is only the beginning. We’re teaching those sounds because we ultimately want students to use them to read.

When students get to experience the payoff of phonics instruction early, they begin connecting everything. The sound practice, blending routines, word reading, sentences, and stories all start to feel like pieces of the same process.

And for a beginning reader, successfully reading that first little passage can be incredibly powerful.

If you’re already using UFLI Foundations or you simply want a way to put connected text in students’ hands as soon as they have enough letter–sound knowledge to begin blending, take a look at the Let's Read Alphabet Anthologies.

They’re designed to meet students right where they are in the scope and sequence and give your earliest readers the chance to start reading from the very beginning.

Check out the Let's Read Alphabet Anthologies 

References

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. MIT Press.

Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2003). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read, kindergarten through grade 3 (3rd ed.). The Partnership for Reading, National Institute for Literacy.

Ehri, L. C. (2020). The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S45–S60. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.334

National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. National Institute for Literacy.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). U.S. Government Printing Office.