Description
Cam’s dad has read him a story and turned out the light. But some strange things start happening in the dark!
ISBN: WL353
Author(s): John Parker
Illustrators: Blair Sayer
Sound Focus: ‘th’sounds
Alignment with Ready to Read Phonics Plus

Emergent Level 7
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.
Word-Level Reading Strategies
Total Word Count: (includes Title) 120
70 different words. 49 are high-frequency words, 51 are decodable and 8 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. bed)
• doubled letters = one sound (e.g. off)
• word endings y, ed, ing (e.g. story, turned, moving)
• 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. only, light, tried, by, pirate)
• voiced and unvoiced ‘th’ written th (e.g. then, think)
Decoding Strategy: As well as revising previously taught strategies, the focus of this book is to learn that the voiced and unvoiced ‘th’ sounds are written with a th spelling pattern. The th is coded blue in the text to help students notice it.
These words contain a voiced ‘th’ (then, the, there, them, that, another) and these
contain an unvoiced ‘th’ (through, both, think, something, moth, breath, thought, Theo).
Non-decodable Words: High-frequency words: when, turned, there, were, through, think, about, something, heard, thought, heard, pirate
Vocabulary words: ghost, wardrobe, noise, dark, curtains, story, miaow, breath
Important Vocabulary in Text:
Nouns: story, light, room, curtains, shadows, eyes, face, moth, wardrobe, breath, noise, ghost, pirate, snake, cat
Verbs: read, turned, moving, shut, think, brushed, heard, held
Download Teacher Notes