Stories by Substep

Cover of Robin and Calvin: two children sit on a front stoop at sunset with a rabbit between them, looking out at a row of brick houses. — Robin and Calvin · all five sets in one paperback · cover art by Leslie Bryan

Chomp kicks. He thumps. He will not sit in a lap for just anyone.

But Robin lifts him up, and Chomp sits still in her lap. She rubs the soft spot on his chin. His back legs let go.

Robin can get a rabbit to sit still. Robin is the best at this.

In class, Robin is not the best at anything.

ROBIN AND THE RABBIT · SET 1

What these are

Every word is decodable.

A child learning to read through a structured programme can only use the patterns she has been taught. Most books ignore that. These do not.

Every word in these readers is one a reader can sound out with the patterns taught up to her stage, or a high-frequency word introduced by then. Not most words. Every word. Each book is checked against its ceiling, word by word, before it is printed.

That is the ordinary promise of a decodable reader. The unusual part is that these are real stories, with a plot and people in them, and a reason to turn the page.

The five sets follow the substeps of Wilson Reading System® Book 3. The correspondence chart below shows exactly which set lines up with which substep.

Wilson Reading System® is a registered trademark of Wilson Language Training Corporation. These readers are an independent work and are not affiliated with, authorized by, sponsored by, or endorsed by Wilson Language Training. The mark is named here only to describe which teaching sequence these sets line up with.

Why they sound the way they do

The limits do the writing.

At this stage a reader has not met silent e, or vowel teams, or r-controlled vowels. So a great many ordinary words are simply unavailable: feel, good, see, look, again, hard, sorry, afraid.

Nobody in these books can be nervous, then. Nobody can be afraid, or sorry. What they can be is specific:

Her neck gets hot. Her hands get damp.

ROBIN AND THE RABBIT · SET 1

The constraint turned out to be the best editor on the project. A character who cannot say sorry has to do something instead. A book that cannot use the word lie calls it a fib, which is what a child calls it anyway.

Who is in them

The cast.

Robin: Cannot spell. Hands her test in fast, with the back on top, so nobody can see the blanks. Is the best in the world at getting a rabbit to sit still.
Calvin: Ten out of ten on every test. Gets off the bus at six, unlocks a flat with nobody in it, and does his maths at the desk on his own.
Chomp: A rabbit. Kicks, thumps, and will not sit in a lap for just anyone.
Nick: Picks on Robin on the bus. Cannot do the maths, and does not want anyone to know it.
Gran: Calvin’s grandmother. Owns the lamp, and has firm views about being told the truth.
Sam, Rex and Max: A boy, a dog who will not sit, and a twin brother. Their books are short on purpose, for a reader with not much stamina yet.

Robin and Calvin · five sets

One new pattern per book.

The order is not decorative. A book in Set 3 uses Set 3’s pattern and everything from Sets 1 and 2 — and nothing beyond it. The new pattern is marked in each sentence below.

Set 1

Robin and the Rabbit

Adds: two closed syllables

Robin has a rabbit. He is Chomp.

CHAPTER 1

Set 2

The Hundred

Adds: blends inside a syllable

“That hundred is not from the grass,” Calvin tells her. “It does not belong to us.”

CHAPTER 2

Set 3

The Kid in Front

Adds: the ct blend

Robin knows that hand. Nick can not do the math. That is a fact.

CHAPTER 2

Set 4

Gran

Adds: three-syllable closed words

“Calvin! That is fantastic,” Robin says.

CHAPTER 5

Set 5

The Fib

Adds: the -ed and -ing suffixes

Robin is checking the grass. Calvin is checking his hands. Not one of them is checking the den.

CHAPTER 2

Sam · five short books

For a reader with low stamina.

The same ladder, built shorter. One whole story per book, between 255 and 356 words, so a child who tires quickly can finish something on her own. Rex Will Not Sit · Too Full · The Big One · The Tent · The Last Chip.

For teachers

The correspondence chart.

The books are branded by set, not by programme. Here is the whole mapping. It is free, it is not sold, and it is not part of any book.

Each set is one stage of a structured-literacy sequence, named for the pattern it adds.
Set	The pattern this set adds	Wilson substep
1	Two closed syllables, no blend inside either	3.1
2	Closed syllables with blends (blanket, sandwich, problem)	3.2
3	The ct blend (insect, expect, fact)	3.3
4	Three-syllable closed words (fantastic, basketball)	3.4
5	The -ed and -ing suffixes, on unchanging bases only	3.5
6	Silent e	4.1

Everything taught in an earlier set stays available in every later one. A book in Set 3 uses Set 3’s pattern and everything from Sets 1 and 2 — and is checked to make sure it uses nothing beyond that.

High-frequency words follow the same staging: a word is only used once the set it belongs to has introduced it.

Sets 1 to 5 sit inside Wilson Book 3 and are collected in one paperback. Set 6 is Book 4 material and ships on its own.

Get the books.

Robin and Calvin collects all five sets in one paperback, with twenty-five illustrations. Sam is sold separately.

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Ten per cent of profits goes to the Churchill School.