Description
Amy’s friends don’t like her slippery slimy trails. But can Amy’s slippery slime help them?
ISBN: WL346
Author(s): Joy Allcock
Illustrators: Samer Hatam
Sound Focus: Long ‘a’
Alignment with Ready to Read Phonics Plus

Emergent Level 6
Colour: Yellow
Value Packs Available:
Set 1
Set 2
Complete Set
You can use the following notes to teach students word-level reading/decoding strategies. More in-depth notes can be downloaded below.
*The vocabulary words pest, aphid, snail, leafhopper, potato beetle, and slug should be introduced before the book is read.
Word-Level Reading Strategies
Total Word Count: (includes Title) 130
80 different words. 48 are high-frequency words, 50 are decodable and 4 are non-decodable vocabulary words.
Decodability Criteria: Words in this book are either high-frequency words or are decodable according to the following criteria:
• one letter = one sound (e.g. sad)
• doubled letters = one sound (e.g. all)
• word endings er, y, ed (e.g. gardener, lucky, shouted)
• ck sounds like ‘k’ (e.g., ‘picked’)
• short ‘o’ written with an a after a ‘w’ sound (e.g. was)
• long vowel spellings at the start, in the middle and at the end of words (e.g. Amy, snail, play, brave)
Decoding Strategy: As well as revising previously taught strategies, the focus of this book is to recognise the long ‘a’ sound in different positions in words. Spelling patterns for the long ‘a’ sound are coded blue to help students notice them. Students will meet these patterns a (Amy, Aphid, potato, making), ai (snail, trail, complained, David,
afraid), ay (play, away, always, spray), a_e (make, hate, came, brave, made, escape), ey (they, Grey). When students meet these blue spelling patterns in words, remind them they will sound like the long ‘a’.
Non-decodable Words: High-frequency words: one, would, with, her, shouted, you, she, mother, thought, along, the, down, now, where’s, that, said, they, were, what
Vocabulary words: aphid, gardener, jar, leafhopper
Important Vocabulary in Text: Garden pests: slug, aphid, snail, leafhopper, potato beetle
Verbs: play, shouted, make, slid, hate, complained, run, picked
Adjectives: sad, slippery, slimy, brave, lucky
Nouns: trails, home, mother, gardener, jar, spray, slime, escape
Download Teacher Notes