The four kinds of word in a story

The short version

• Blue words are Focus words. They use the phonics pattern the story was created to practice.
• Red words are Unknown words. Cody does not recognize them as available to this reader yet.
• Plain words are usually Known or Sight words. They count as available and do not need a visible color.
• Colors are off until you turn them on. Open Settings above the story and switch on Word Highlighting.
• Highlighting needs a student.
• The colors depend on the lesson or student used for the story. Check that information if a color looks wrong.

The four kinds

Kind	In the story	What it means
Known	plain text	Cody treats the word as available from known patterns or accepted story information
Focus	clutch	The word uses a target pattern selected for practice
Sight	plain text	The word is on the reader’s recognized high-frequency word list
Unknown	gnarled	The word uses an unavailable pattern or could not be matched confidently

Names and teacher-chosen topic words can be treated as Known. A student can be told a character’s name before reading, and the teacher has already chosen the topic word as part of the story.

Numbers and dates sit outside these four kinds. They are not highlighted and do not affect the decodability percentage.

Turning the colors on

The colors live behind Settings, at the top of the story beside the word count and the decodable percentage. Select it to open the reading settings.

1. Find the Word Highlighting panel.
2. Switch it on. It reads Enabled once it is.
3. Two checkboxes appear underneath.

• Highlight unknown words controls the red text. It is ticked already.
• Highlight focus words controls the blue text. Tick it when you want the target pattern to stand out.

Word Highlighting cannot be switched on unless the story has a student selected. The colors are worked out from one reader’s pattern profile, so a lesson-based story has nothing to compare its words against. The switch is greyed out and explains this when you point at it.

Unticking a box only hides that color. It does not change the story, the pattern profile, or the decodable percentage.

Use the colors in the way that fits your lesson. You may show Focus words for guided practice, hide them for independent reading, or turn on Unknown words while you review the story yourself before the student sees it.

In short: highlighting is off until you turn it on, it needs a student, and the two checkboxes only change what you can see.

Where the colors come from

The story is analyzed using the lesson or student information selected when it was created.

For a student-based story, Cody checks the words against the student’s Known, Target, and Unknown patterns and their recognized high-frequency words.

If a word color looks wrong, check these items first:

1. The curriculum and lesson shown above the story.
2. The student’s Phonetic Patterns grid.
3. The student’s high-frequency word list.

The highlighting controls cannot correct a classification. They only show or hide the colors.

Three states in the grid, four kinds on the page

The two sets are related, but they describe different things.

• The pattern grid describes phonics patterns: Known, Target, and Unknown.
• The story describes words: Known, Focus, Sight, and Unknown.

Target changes to Focus because the story is showing words that contain the target pattern. Sight is the extra category because it applies to a recognized word, not to a phonics pattern.

In short: Target is a pattern state; Focus is the story-word category created from that target.

Related

• How decodability scoring works
• Decodable text: what it is and why it matters
• Reading the pattern grid
• Check any passage for decodability