Lillory
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Is this text decodable at your reader's stage?
Pick the last thing your reader has been taught. Paste a page from any book, worksheet or website. This marks every word your reader can already sound out, every word taught by sight, and every word that asks for a pattern nobody has shown them yet.
It answers a question about the text, not about the child. A book that comes back mostly underlined is not a book your reader failed. It is a book to read together instead of a book to hand over.
Check a passage
- Sound it out: 0
- By sight: 0
- Not taught yet: 0
Paste some text above and this will fill in.
What is blocking the rest
Where the stages come from
The stages, the letters taught at each one and the starting list of words taught by sight are read directly from the Lillory app as it is currently running, not kept by hand on this page. That is the same rule we run against our own decodable passages before publishing them, so the checker is exactly as strict with us as it is with your book.
Nothing you paste leaves your browser
There is no upload, no account and no logging. The text is checked by code running on your own device, which is why this works on a page from a library book you have no right to send anywhere.
The five stages it covers
Each stage includes everything taught before it.
- Stage 1. Consonants and short vowels
- Stage 2. Closed syllables: digraphs
- Stage 3. Silent-e (vowel-consonant-e)
- Stage 4. R-controlled vowels
- Stage 5. Long vowels and vowel teams
What this checker can and cannot tell you
It is deliberately strict, because a tool that flatters a book is worse than no tool.
- It covers the first five stages of decoding, from short vowels through the vowel teams. A handful of later spellings sit beyond the last stage (ph, kn, wr, mb, gn, gh) and are reported as taught after these stages, not as never taught. A reader well past this point will be told words are untaught when they are not, so the answer stops being useful.
- It reads one syllable at a time, and it will accept a two part compound such as sunset. Longer words are marked as not taught yet even when a reader could break them apart.
- It follows our own teaching order, so a word can be perfectly ordinary and still be marked not taught yet simply because its pattern comes later. That is the point of the tool, not a fault in the book.
- It knows spelling patterns, not meaning. A word can be perfectly soundable and still be a word your reader has never met.
- It is the same check we run against our own published passages before we put them on this site, so it is strict with us too.
Why decodable text matters
When a book only uses patterns a reader has been taught, sounding out works, and the reader gets to find out that it works. When a book is full of patterns nobody has taught yet, sounding out fails, and a reader who is already unsure learns to guess from the picture or the first letter instead. The habit is the damage, and it is much harder to undo than the gap that caused it.
That is the whole argument for matching a book to a stage. It is not about keeping books easy. It is about making sure the strategy you are teaching is the strategy that pays off when the child tries it alone.
The thirty second version, without any tool
In a library or a bookshop, open to a page in the middle, put a finger on five words at random, and ask your reader to read just those five. Four or five right means the book is usable on their own. Three means it is a book for you to read to them. You do not need to know which patterns the book uses, because your reader is the more accurate instrument.
Where this comes from
- Reading Rockets, Phonics and Decoding. Background on how decoding is taught and why the order matters, written for families.
- National Center on Improving Literacy. Federally funded briefs and resources on reading difficulty and evidence aligned instruction.
- International Dyslexia Association, Dyslexia at a Glance. What dyslexia is and is not, from the organization that defines the term most widely used in schools.
The stage order and the letter patterns this checker uses are the same ones behind our free scope and sequence, our decodable word lists and our decodable passages.
Take the guidance with you
The checker itself needs a browser, but the stages, the letter patterns that block a word and the thirty second test all print on one sheet. Free, and no sign-up.
This is general educational information, not medical, psychological or legal advice, and it is not a diagnosis. Only a qualified professional can identify dyslexia or a reading disorder through a full evaluation. If you have concerns about your child, consult a qualified professional.