The Essentials Reader has been designed to meet the needs of older students who need phonics-controlled text to practice the decoding skills taught in Essentials Level A. It is also an excellent tool for Essentials Level A students in 3rd or 4th grade who need decodable text to continue to build reading fluency and comprehension.

Each passage in the Essentials Reader: 

• Corresponds with the phonograms and spelling rules taught in Essentials.
• Provides 30 decodable passages to practice reading skills and build reading fluency.
• progresses in complexity and length of passages.
• supports older struggling readers because of the connection to Essentials lessons.
• builds readers' confidence while meeting the interests of older students.
• includes engaging fiction such as fables, poems, folktales, and historical, biographical, and scientific informative nonfiction text.

The Essentials Reader includes a chart of the phonograms and spelling rules needed to read each passage for those interested in a decodable reader to use alongside other curricula.

Comprehension and composition lessons to support text analysis can be taught alongside The Essentials Reader, using the Essentials Reader Student Activity Book and the Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide. All three items are included in the Essentials Reader Set.

The Essentials Reader is not a complete literature program. The purpose is to support students who need decodable text for reading practice. Students who are already reading at grade level should be reading developmentally appropriate books while pairing Essentials with a literature program of choice.