Jump Rope Readers

On the one hand, there are books that beginners want to read but can't. Most picture books and chapter books fall into this category. Surprisingly, so do many of the early readers and I-can-reads you see in libraries and bookstores. On the other hand, too many of the decodable books that we see in classrooms aren't particularly enticing, even if beginners can read them. We think beginning readers deserve better.

Jump Rope Readers is a series of engaging and diverse decodable books that captivate beginning readers.

Each fiction book introduces new phonics features and high-frequency words to help students build skills. After kids have read several fiction books, they can read a matching set of nonfiction books that give them opportunities to practice the same words and letter-sound correspondences while learning about new content in a new genre.

Together, all of the Jump Rope Readers provide lots of supportive practice that allows students to gradually improve their skills as they step up towards the ultimate goal of reading confidently and fluently.

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Key Qualities

jrr — Four Key Qualities of Beginner Books

Influential reading researchers Richard Anderson and Freddy Hiebert described the key qualities that educators should look for in books for beginning readers in a report they wrote for the National Academy of Education. They wrote:

*"Writing the first selections a child will read is a difficult balancing act. Ideally, the selections will be:*

*interesting (so that students will want to read them);*

*comprehensible (so that students are able to understand them); and*

*instructive (so that students will learn from them)."*

Of course, a quality that underlies all of this is representation. When books are an accurate reflection of our beautifully diverse world, children find them considerably more interesting and comprehensible, so we added that foundational idea to the list of essential priorities that informed the development of the Jump Rope Readers series.

Components

Series Components

The Jump Rope Readers series consists of 66 high-interest decodable books and six accompanying read-alouds, organized into two classroom sets, each composed of two boxes. Together, these books gradually and systematically introduce beginning readers to new letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words. Along the way, they also introduce memorable characters, exciting adventures, and the foundational elements of literary fiction.

Fiction

Set A includes:

jrr-set-a — 30 decodable books* (6 copies of each) that introduce short vowels, consonants, bonus letters, blends, digraphs, CV words, and a small selection of high-frequency words. Digital access is included.

Set B includes:

jrr set b — 36 decodable books (6 copies of each) that introduce silent E, inflectional endings, vowel teams, R-controlled vowels, diphthongs, consonant -LE, soft C and G, the jobs of Y, multisyllabic words, and a broader selection of high-frequency words. Digital access is included.

Nonfiction

Features

Interesting and Comprehensible

As you explore the Jump Rope Readers, you'll notice the books are arranged into different series, each starring a distinctive main character. In addition to Nick, who loves dinosaurs, there's Ana with her big imagination, Tam, who's full of energy and mischief, Imran, who's a bit shy at first, and many more. All the Jump Rope Readers take place in the same neighborhood, so characters from earlier books make special guest appearances in later ones.

The fact that the Jump Rope Readers are arranged into series makes them more engaging to kids, and also makes them especially comprehensible. Series books feature familiar characters who react to problems in predictable ways.

jrr red series — Example: Titles in the Red Series, featuring Tam and Nat

Once kids know who the characters are, they know what to expect, and this helps them follow the story. To ensure that kids understand the key characters and their relationships, each series begins with a "book one" that lays out these elements. In set A, "book one" is a picture book that teachers can read aloud to kids. In set B, it's a decodable book that kids can read on their own.

Representative

When kids open a book and see characters who look, live, or act like them, it helps them connect not only to the characters, but to the act of reading.

Scope & Sequence

Instructive: Scope and Sequence

Like all decodable books, the Jump Rope Readers start off simple, then gradually grow in complexity as more phonics content is added. The books follow a scope and sequence of letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words that aligns with the phonics progression behind the Units of Study—and this same progression, or one quite similar to it, informs most other phonics programs as well.

Within this progression, the texts don't introduce every letter-sound correspondence in the English language (there are over two hundred), but rather focus on those letter-sound correspondences that occur most frequently in print, providing kids with an efficient path toward more advanced reading.

Overall, the scope and sequence offers a steady "ramp" into early trade books. By the time students have finished the last Jump Rope Reader, they'll have lots of letter-sound correspondences under their belts, and they'll be ready to tackle familiar series such as Fly Guy, Yasmin, Henry and Mudge, or Sofia Martinez. Ready, that is, for a deep dive into the wider world of children's literature.

Download the Scope and Sequence for the titles within each set.

Assessment

Decoding assessments are a great way to identify where students are and where they might need help.

Download this free Phonic Decoding Assessment that you can use with your students. This decoding assessment is broken into categories that progress in difficulty, from CVC all the way through multisyllabic words. Use this assessment for each child to help you track that child’s growing control of this dimension.

Phonic Decoding Assessment

FAQs

How do I use these books with my Units of Study Phonics program?

The Jump Rope Readers were created by a team of writers and editors who also contributed to the Units of Study in Reading and the Units of Study in Phonics—and the books are an important resource for those series. However, the books can be used to supplement a range of reading programs as engaging material for whole class lessons, partner reading, shared reading, read-alouds, small group work, or independent practice.

Can I use this series with any Reading / Phonics series?

Like all decodable books, the Jump Rope Readers start off simple, then gradually grow in complexity as more phonics content is added. While the books follow a scope and sequence that aligns with the phonics progression behind the Units of Study—CVC words, blends and digraphs, silent E, vowel teams, R-controlled vowels, diphthongs, multisyllabic words—this same progression, or one quite similar to it, informs most phonics programs. Therefore, teachers in many classrooms will find the Jump Rope Readers a welcome addition to their libraries.

How do I access the digital books?

These books are available digitally, use the order form to fill out the digital access information. For any questions email: heinemanndigitalhelp@pearson.com

Why are the Jump Rope Readers Nonfiction decodable books illustrated with art instead of photos?

The goal of nonfiction is to deliver new information about the social and natural world in an easily accessible format.

The illustrations in the Jump Rope Readers Nonfiction books support the subject matter of the decodable text and its structure. This structure is often narrative because when new information is put into narrative form, students understand and retain it better. Explicit illustrations support narrative content in a way that photos can’t always achieve.

What are hybrid nonfiction books?

The Jump Rope Readers Nonfiction series can be called a hybrid structure because the books convey nonfiction knowledge within a narrative form featuring familiar characters from the Fiction series.

The hybrid genre provides a bridge for early readers from familiar fiction to informational text. Hybrid books blend elements of narrative and informational texts to offer readers an engaging way of learning new information. Although not as common in K–2 classrooms, this genre is uniquely designed in the Jump Rope Readers: Nonfiction decodable books to fully support and inspire students as they learn to read.

How do the Jump Rope Readers Fiction and Nonfiction series work together?

After students have read several fiction books––incorporating new skills all the while––they can read the related nonfiction books, which offer more exposure to those same skills.

The Nonfiction books have topics that mirror the content of the Fiction books. The Nonfiction books offer readers the opportunity to review and practice the skills from the Fiction books.

Beginners need lots of practice to master new skills, but often the tricky thing is making sure all that extra practice feels fresh, not more of the same. The genre switch that occurs as students move through each fiction series and into the corresponding nonfiction books aims to do exactly this—even as students read the same words and letter-sound correspondences over and over, they are learning about new content, in a new genre.

Together, the two sets offer readers lots of supportive practice that allows them to gradually improve their skills.

How to Use

How it is Organized

There are two sets of Jump Rope Readers, A and B. Set A is designed for readers in kindergarten and early first grade. Set B is designed for readers in first grade and early second grade. Together, the sets gradually stretch readers to the point where they can successfully tackle early trade books

Phonics skills progress across the readers with the earliest foundational skills introduced in Set A, Box 1, and then skills are developed across Box 2 and into Set B.

Boxes are available separately so, for example, grade 1 teachers can add Set A, Box 2 to their libraries if students need practice in those earlier skills. We recommend that all classrooms start with the complete Set A or Set B and then add on as needed.

Using Decodable Texts in your Classroom

In addition to marvelous picture books and engaging trade books, your classroom library needs lots of decodable books, including Jump Rope Readers. Decodable books give children all-important opportunities to apply the phonics they are learning in continuous texts.

You’ll want to audit your classroom library and plan to add many high-quality decodable readers for children to encounter, engage with independently, and add to their partner and table bins and book baggies as texts they can read successfully on their own.
When children are just beginning to read, you’ll curate the contents of their bins or baggies so that children are able to have success reading the books in their bins.
Bins or baggies that you curate for your early readers will contain copies of a few songs or poems the children have read together countless times, as well as books they can have success with.
In very early kindergarten, the books you channel kids toward may be look-at books, such as the browsable nonfiction books that so enthrall children, and they may be the predictable rhyming books that you have helped them read as a class.
As soon as children know enough letter-sound correspondences to begin decoding words, some of the books in their bins and baggies will be decodable books that are especially written to allow children to practice that work. These books offer kids many opportunities to apply the phonics they’ve learned.
By first and second grade, you’ll probably invite children to choose for themselves many of the books in their bins and baggies. At the same time, you’ll regularly add decodable books to their bins and baggies, so that they can continue to receive lots of practice with the phonics they have been taught.
Because the Jump Rope Readers offer engaging plot lines and natural-sounding language, they set children up to practice comprehension and fluency work in addition to decoding.