Questions about the E Big Books

Are the E Big Books decodable?
The stories in the E Big Books contain decodable words. The stories are intended to be teacher-led, allowing children to apply their blending skills in the context of "real books" - which is why the stories aren't fully decodable.

However, the E Big Books also contain phrases, sentences and mini-stories which are fully decodable, so there are lots of opportunities for children to read on their own.

Why is 'a' highlighted as a tricky word?
'A' is highlighted because some schools and advisers consider a tricky word (as it's pronounced 'uh' instead of the synthetically pure 'a'). If your school consider it tricky, then they could just ask children to join in and read it as a decodable high frequency word when it is highlighted.

Why are the second level of words in the E Big Book stories called 'review'?
They are called 'review' because teachers use them to review all the phonemes once they have been taught. So as an example, in E book 1, story 1, the 'basic' words only consist of the phonemes children have been taught so far - p a t i s n. But the teacher can come back to the story when all 44 phonemes have been taught and use the 'review' button, which includes words containing any of the 44 phonemes. This means the E books can be used beyond reception, and they give children confidence -- at the beginning of the year, the children could only read the 'basic' words, but at the end of the year they can read this new level of words!