Daffodil Hill Press

09/22/2026

New year, new look, new resources! Instead of picking out shiny new shoes for the start of the school year, we’ve decided to revamp our Digital Resource Hub and the tools inside it. Check out this quick tour of the new hub, including our new Weekly Reads and Small Group Reads for Purposeful Practice decodables—powerful lesson plans to support a year’s worth of whole class or small group instruction in reading. (Message us if you forgot your password and need some guidance!)

07/13/2026

We love this!

Where are you sitting and why?

07/06/2026

Differentiated reading instruction can support students in becoming real readers, and ultimately lead to greater oral reading fluency.

Daffodil Hill's Bit by Bit Collection is built to teach kids the phonics that matters most for reading. Each quick phonics reinforcement lesson is paired with a short, focused decodable. Kids practice the new skill in a new text right away. And because the text is short, there's no need to say, "We'll find a way to finish this later." or "I wonder what will happen at the end?" (Our Spanish collection, Los Narcisos is the same.)

Because Bit by Bit Instructional decodables are a pathway to reading, they focus less on particular spelling patterns. That's why you don't see the same weight given to concepts that are mostly difficult from a spelling perspective. Your core, whole class phonics can pick up the weight there.

If your core phonics instruction goes a bit slow due to a rollout of spelling concepts and rules (for example, when to use FLSZ or digraph CK, or spelling with welded sounds), it can delay kids' learning of useful phonics for reading, like CVCe, R Controlled Vowels, Vowel Teams. In this case, Bit by Bit might be a good supplemental resource for your district or school.

Actually, the biggest goal is to get kids reading decodable books, and then, to know the phonics to get out of them.

Take a look at the full free ebook library: link in bio.

07/03/2026

We like dry, just-washed laundry. We like dry commutes to work. But dry nonfiction decodables? No way!

Here's an interior page from one of our Purposeful Practice books. In this book, Sharks, you get real facts (nurse shark), words a late Grade 1 or early Grade 2 reader can actually decode (like those with r-controlled vowels). No boring sentences naming the obvious. (That's a pet peeve of ours!)

We believe that if decodable text is the only text some of your students can read successfully and enjoy independently, it should absolutely be worth their time.

Check out our bio for our website and free ebooks.

07/01/2026

We think small group, differentiated instruction should be as easy as possible, and only as complicated as neccessary.

Yet, big box curricula often have to produce complex lesson plans that become bloated and hard to use.

We were teachers, and so we know usability and simplicity are beautiful things.

"Our teachers love to use DHP decodables for small group instruction. The included materials, the short engaging stories and the match to our scope and sequence make them a perfect tool for small groups."
—Kristen, District Literacy Coach

We love it when we lead PD and hear people say things like, "I can do this tomorrow. I don't have wait until summer and psych myself up to launch this in my classroom next year."

Grab a printable sample kit at the link in bio.

06/30/2026

The end of the school year is a good reflection time. We've been thinking back to why we started Daffodil Hill Press. Here's what Katrina, our editor, has to say:

At the time we started, the world needed better decodables, but that's not all.

Teachers needed (and still need) usable tools. Often, teachers need to spend massive energy tweaking things heavily to make them work. One example in the world of decodables are texts that are just way too long. And another example is accompanying lessons that take far longer than a real teacher has in their schedule.

When teachers need to fix things, that’s energy. And that energy spent tweaking things is energy that deserves to be spent elsewhere (or just saved)!

That’s why we built Bit by Bit Instructional Decodables around what can really work in a classroom. Our Bit by Bit collections offer short books that live inside a 15-ish minute lesson (minutes are hard to know for sure in the real world classroom) with lesson plans that fit on one page. The phonics sequence is focused on the skills that actually get kids reading. (That's why we don't teach every spelling rule in Bit by Bit. Our books are pathway to reading, rather than a full phonics and spelling curriculum.)

The same principles apply to Los Narcisos Spanish Decodables. If you teach in a Dual Language clasroom, check them out!

Signup at the link in bio if you want more from us.

06/10/2026

A short literacy-coach approved checklist for the next time you're reviewing decodable texts. These are five things we look for (and think about when we make decodables).

Number 2 is the one most often skipped, in our experience. (But what do you think? And what did we miss?)

Swipe through, and sign up for our newsletter at the link in bio if you want more like this.

06/07/2026

In a world of behemoth curriculum publishers that seem to own all things assessment and curriculum, we are trying to make books that are good for kids and good for teachers. That’s our mission.

Four educators once said, "I wish this existed." And the "this" was usable decodables built for teachers like us. That's how Daffodil Hill Press started. Here's one of our four, Katrina. An amazing editor!

If our books have made a hard day easier, the most useful thing you can do is tag a teacher friend who'd want them. Sharing is how small presses like ours reach the people who need this stuff. (We aren't one of those big box curriculum companies...)

Thank you for being here.

06/06/2026

"Fully decodable" isn't really a yes/no label. And also, something doesn't have to be fully decodable if there's teacher mediation.

A book is only decodable relative to a specific phonics scope, a specific student, and a specific point in the year. We'd love to have a longer conversation over bubble tea someday, but for now, swipe to see what we think.

Curious about our books and the phonics in them? Browse our ebook library at the link in bio. We're Daffodil Hill: a small educational publisher that wants to help kids learn to read and love to read. Follow us if you don't already.

06/03/2026

Hot Topics Nonfiction Decodables are shipping now!

If you ordered, your set is on its way. (Wahoo.) If you've been on the fence, this is your week. They're flying off the shelves. Nonfiction decodables your higher readers will actually pick up at choice time. Great for older readers, too.

Order at the link in bio.