Decodable books are specifically designed to support 鈥榩honics鈥� instruction, which is a method of teaching people to read by associating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetical writing system.

They include words readers can "decode" or sound out using their understanding of letter-sound relationships.

Since 2020, sisters Elspeth and Rowena Rae have been writing decodable series of books to assist children of all abilities in overcoming language-based learning difficulties and achieving reading success.

Elspeth was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was eight years old and her experience growing up inspired her to write the 鈥楳eg and Greg鈥� books, alongside her sister Rowena.

鈥淚 wanted the book to look like the books other kids of the same age were reading,鈥� the Vancouver-based author said. 鈥淪o, along with the carefully planned pedagogy that went into our Meg and Greg books, we tried to put in a big dose of 鈥榗ool.鈥� The way we see it, we included some features for our readers鈥� heads and some for their hearts.鈥�

The Meg and Greg series includes helpful features for children learning to read, including those with dyslexia or learning English as an additional language.

鈥淚t may not be so much the kid who realizes that, as the teacher or the parent who's reading alongside them,鈥� Rowena explains. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 use very difficult language, and the way the books are set up is for two people to read them at once to share the reading.鈥�

According to the Victoria-based author, the left-hand page of the book is intended for experienced readers, such as teachers, tutors, parents, older siblings, or classmates. On the right side of the page, there is text geared toward a child learning to read. It has a highly controlled phonetic structure.

鈥淚n the early books, every single one of what we call the kid pages or the child pages was like a graphic novel in style,鈥� Rowena adds. They included speech bubbles and cartoon-style drawings to assist the authors in controlling the words used and not introducing anything other than what they had accomplished thus far.

In each story, readers are introduced to a new spelling concept or a new sound.

"We realized that while our initial target was children with dyslexia, they are really helpful for a much broader range of children who are starting to pick up these reading concepts and need the practice of seeing words over and over again with the spellings that they're learning."

The challenge, according to the Victoria-based author is coming up with an interesting story. 鈥淪ometimes just by looking at what words exist with, for example, an 'SH' in them, we can start to pick out a lot of words that have to do with a particular animal or thing.

The sixth book in the series, Meg and Greg: Train Day! came out on Feb. 11.