The Key Foundations by Hatch™ curriculum kit includes 30 distinctive titles designed for early readers to participate alongside the teacher in small-group settings. This set comprises the following:
- 10 books with two words per page
- 10 books with three-word sentences
- 10 books with four-word sentences
Approximately 75% of the content is fiction, promoting authentic prosocial skill development, while the remaining 25% consists of nonfiction texts that enhance core content-area knowledge. The teaching versions of these books incorporate embedded instruction aligned with the science of reading.
An illustrative example of a Pre-Decodables book is Wake Up, Cow! This fiction book with three-word sentences focuses on the high-frequency words I, can, and up and various letter–sound correspondences, and it emphasizes social skills, such as cooperation and teamwork. The "T" icon on the front cover denotes the teacher version with integrated instruction.
Inside the book, Guide Notes on the inside front cover provide background information on what children are learning, accompanied by an easy-to-follow lesson plan for teachers, paraprofessionals, tutors, aides, or parent volunteers conducting small-group lessons.
Importantly, the instruction in these books diverges from conventional small-group reading methods, like guided reading or balanced literacy. They are not typical decodable readers. Instead, they focus on small-group instruction in skills and strategies aligned with the science of reading.
The teaching panels integrated into the right-hand side of the pages provide explicit prompts for decoding, oral language, phonological awareness, and critical thinking. These panels support teachers throughout the lesson, starting with the "Reading the words" section, where the teacher reads aloud while students touch the words.
In fiction texts, pauses before each page turn encourage critical thinking and building active reading strategies. Nonfiction texts also include pauses, focusing on active reading to build knowledge.
The teaching prompts in the "Reading the words" sections build essential letter–sound connections, phonological awareness (syllables), and phonemic awareness skills (like blending). The "Thinking critically" sections include various active reading skills and strategies, such as making predictions, generating questions, and making connections.
At the end of each story or selection, a visual organizer is shown, serving as a scaffold for a partner talk activity focused on retelling (fiction) or describing key ideas and details (nonfiction). In fiction titles, prompts on this page also support social or cognitive skills related to the story's theme.
The next spread features a high-frequency word activity, where students read and match words in bubbles, practicing word recognition and visual matching. This activity provides an opportunity for teachers to observe word recognition skills.
A unique aspect of these books is the activity on the top of the last page. This activity involves a step-by-step strategy for recognizing sounds in high-frequency words, contributing to mental mapping for spelling and rapid word recognition in print. The chart at the bottom of the page showcases words beginning or ending with single-consonant letter sounds and one-syllable words containing single vowels representing short or long vowel sounds.
Finally, the inside back cover serves as a quick reference to high-frequency words, phonological and phonemic awareness skills, letter sounds, and other features in the book.