The Essentials Reader:
Readings to Accompany Logic of English Essentials

Engage the interest and build the confidence of older struggling readers!

Thirty high-interest passages controlled for the phonics and language concepts students are learning in Essentials. When combined with Essentials, students are able to successfully sound out every word, with no sight words or guessing, thereby building fluency and confidence. Combined with the Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide and Student Activity Book, The Essentials Reader may be used as a complete reading comprehension and composition program for upper elementary grades or struggling readers of any age. 

These texts are designed with the older student in mind. While many early readers appear "babyish" to an older student, The Essentials Reader engages students with topics such as sports, history, science, and inspiring biographies. In addition, The Essentials Reader supports students in developing fluency with the tools they are learning in Essentials, teaches academic vocabulary, and when combined with the Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide develops comprehension skills.

• High-interest texts written for older students!
• No sight words! - when introduced with the corresponding Essentials lessons
• Phonics controlled
• Natural language
• Fiction and non-fiction texts, including poems, a recipe, short stories, and informational texts
• Diverse topics such as sports, science, technology, and biographies
• Engaging illustrations and call-outs
• Scheduled as optional reading practice in the Essentials curriculum
• Pre-reading word lists marked with Logic of English spelling analysis markings
• Academic vocabulary
• Texts grow in length as students progress in ability 

Recommended for

• Ages 8 to adult
• As a reading comprehension and composition curriculum for Grades 3-6
• Older struggling readers
• Students with dyslexia
• Students who are using Essentials or another complete phonics curriculum to strengthen basic reading skills.

Learn More

• About The Essentials Reader
• Essentials: Multi-Level Reading, Spelling, Grammar, & Vocabulary
• On the blog: posts about helping struggling readers
• On our YouTube™ channel: Teaching Struggling Readers and Spellers

High-Interest, Controlled Texts

1. Ten Quips
2. Buck Got Stuck
3. Acorns for Peter
4. Bed Racing
5. Wombats
6. Futnet
7. Just Call Her Shelly
8. Weather
9. Astronauts
10. Molasses Banana Bread
11. Felix the Frog
12. Stars of the Sea
13. The Toothpick Fighters
14. William Kamkwamba
15. Geothermal Energy
16. The Tale of Paul Bunyan
17. The Story of Chocolate
18. A Perilous Escape
19. Robert Smalls
20. The Milkmaid, the Brothers, and the Lessons They Learned
21. An Open Letter to the Banyan Tree
22. The Boy Who Wanted a Drum
23. The Message of the Drum
24. Grace Murray Hopper
25. Iditarod
26. Togo
27. Billy Mills
28. Sepak Takraw
29. Robert Louis Stevenson
30. Biddy Mason

Suggested Materials

• Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide
• Essentials Reader Student Activity Book
• Essentials These reading passages are designed to accompany Essentials lessons and provide practice with the reading and spelling concepts introduced.

Product Details

• Publication date: 2015
• Full color
• Hardcover
• 184 pages
• Weight: 1 lb.
• Product SKU: CER1P
• ISBN: 978-1-936706-93-8
• This product is no longer available as a PDF. Learn more.

A note for those using Essentials 1st Edition

The Reader lessons are numbered to correspond with the lesson numbering in Essentials 2nd edition (2015) and later. The Reader may also be used with the first edition of Essentials (2012), but some adjustment will be necessary because of the difference in numbering between the two editions. Appendix A, at the back of the Reader, indicates which phonograms and rules students need to have learned before reading each lesson's text.