Children’s Readers

These readers all align to classroom teaching activities in the Better Start Literacy Approach and are designed to supplement the Ready to Read - Phonic Plus readers which form the foundation of the small group reading in the Better Start Literacy Approach.

All these readers use the Ministry of Education open source font for early readers - Aronui. Click here to download to your computer.

Use the ‘link to online version’ to view a Google slides presentation of the story for sharing on the big screen. Use the ‘link to narrated online version’ to view the story with an embedded audio file retell.

Click here to read more about the academic rationale for using decodable texts in early literacy instruction.

When sounding out words it can be helpful to have a reference for how each letter or set of letters translates to a sound in the English language. These resources may be helpful for that:

Vowel and Consonant Sounds in NZ English (use as a reference when listening to the audio files below)
NZ English Vowel Sounds audio
NZ English Consonant Sounds audio

Children’s Readers

A Fun Run

A New Cup

A New Zealand Frog

Bat Needs a Nap

Dad and the Tap

Hemi’s Pot

Ika the Mudfish

Kate Makes a Cake

Kate’s Big Game

Kiwi in the Night

Mac the Pup

Mot and Don

Mot and the Cap

Mot in the Pot

Mot the Fat Cat

Mud on Don

No Running at the Pool

Pam’s Top

Pam’s Beesting

Pat it Up

Rat’s Ride

Sit, Mac!

Tama and Big Ted

Tama’s Pants Are Too Small

The Big Wind

Troy’s Toys

Weka Chick is Lost