As fall screening places older students into tiered reading support, Saddleback Educational Publishing answers the questions intervention teachers raise about small-group phonics, copies, starting points, and progress checks.
Pasadena, CA, Oct. 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As schools finish fall reading screening and place older students into response to intervention and other tiered support, Saddleback Educational Publishing is laying out where phonics books for tweens and teens fit in a school’s intervention plan. The family-owned Hi-Lo publisher, founded in 1982, writes its tween and teen decodable phonics sets for the decoding portion of reading intervention in middle and high school, giving older striving readers age-respectful connected text to practice after explicit phonics instruction.
“Every October I hear from teachers who just got their screening results back and suddenly have eighth graders in a phonics group,” said Arianne McHugh, President and Publisher of Saddleback Educational Publishing, who has led the company since 2009. “The first thing they ask me is what those kids are going to read on Monday.”
Tier 2 Phonics Groups Need Decodable Text Built for Older Students
Decodable books belong in the phonics portion of a response to intervention plan, where students missing specific decoding patterns get explicit instruction in each pattern and then practice it in the connected text those books supply. Under response to intervention or a broader multi-tiered system of supports, schools commonly deliver this work as Tier 2 small-group instruction alongside core instruction, with more intensive Tier 3 support for students who need it. Saddleback’s sets supplement a school’s core reading program.
Decodable Books for Grades 4–8 and 9–12 Intervention Blocks
The books need text controlled to the patterns the group is learning and an age-respectful design. Saddleback publishes its phonics sets in two grade bands.
- The Tween Emergent Reader Libraries® Phonics sets serve grades 4–8 at reading levels 0.5 to 1.6 (Lexile® BR90L to HL200L).
- The Teen Emergent Reader Libraries® Phonics sets serve grades 9–12 from beginning reader to reading level 1.6 (BR to HL150L).
For students ready for prefixes, suffixes, and challenging spelling patterns, the Phonics Decodable Readers add six sets of ten books for grades 6–12.
A Systematic Phonics Sequence for Middle and High School Intervention Programs
The sets work as a systematic sequence when a teacher pairs them with explicit instruction.
For grades 4–8, GO! Decode®, GO! Develop®, and GO! Discover® move in order from consonant-vowel-consonant words through long vowels, consonant digraphs, and vowel diphthongs to multisyllabic words.
The grades 9–12 sets, Decode™, Develop®, and Discover™, follow the same order.
“By high school, a lot of these kids have been in reading groups for years, and they’re tired of it,” McHugh added. “When the story is about something they actually care about, they stop watching the clock and start reading.”
What a Small-Group Phonics Lesson With Older Students Needs
In a small-group phonics lesson, the teacher teaches one pattern explicitly, and students then read that pattern in connected text. The practice holds up best when the group has several different books at each level, so each session brings a story the students haven’t read yet. Saddleback’s teen sets hold eight books at each level. Teachers can preview each pattern with the word list in every book and plan from the lesson in each set’s teacher’s guide.
Questions Intervention Teachers Ask About Decodable Phonics Books
Question: How many copies of each book does an intervention group need?
Answer: One per student. Each Saddleback tween and teen phonics boxed set holds three copies of each of its 24 titles, so a group of three can read from one box. Larger groups add copies one level at a time through Additional Book Sets, each holding one more copy of the eight titles in a level.
Question: Which set should a middle school intervention group start with?
Answer: The set that teaches the patterns the group is missing. GO! Decode®, GO! Develop®, and GO! Discover® run in a fixed order, so a group whose screening shows it already reads the early patterns can begin with the second or third set and spend its intervention time on patterns it still needs.
Question: What phonics assessment tools track progress with older students?
Answer: Saddleback’s tween and teen sets include a summative assessment for every book, so a teacher can see after each book which patterns held and which need another pass before the group moves to the next level. Decisions about moving a student between tiers stay with each school’s own intervention process and progress-monitoring data.
Question: Can one intervention group mix middle and high school students?
Answer: Yes, when assessment shows the students need the same patterns. The grades 4–8 sets and the grades 9–12 sets follow one phonics order, so each student can practice the shared pattern in a book designed for their own grade band. A tenth grader doesn’t have to read a book made for the seventh grader in the next seat.
About Saddleback Educational Publishing
Saddleback Educational Publishing is a family-owned, MWBE-certified Hi-Lo publisher founded in 1982. What started as a home-office operation shipping orders out of a garage is now a catalog of over 1,500 titles, all of them created and published by Saddleback. The same family has run it for over 40 years, and the mission has never changed.
We create high-interest, age-respectful instructional materials for striving readers in grades 4–12, including English Language Learners, Newcomers, students with learning disabilities, and students reading below grade level. Our books are written at accessible reading levels, from Pre-K through fifth grade, so no matter where a student is starting, there is something on our shelf for them. We offer a wide range of formats including graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction, books in verse, and plays, because we know that the right format is just as important as the right reading level.
