Writing Early Readers
As many of you know, I’ve written a collection of children’s books. One of the companies I worked for is a massive producer and distributor of board books, picture books, early readers, and chapter books. For those of you who, like me, write for different age groups, I decided today to look at one of these developmental levels: early readers.
Early readers are directed towards children aged five through seven, transitioning from picture books to independent reading. It’s a fun age. I love kids. They’re crazy at this stage, making them a load of fun to write for. It’s also a critical age because this is a crucial period for literary comprehension, developing skills, and where these kids will land on later leveled reading systems.
The word count for early readers is a modest 500 to 2,000 words. That doesn’t mean the stories are easy to turn out well, but it is less of a chunk than writing an 80,000 to 120,000-word novel for adults. You’ve still got the same story development tools you need to work with, you simply keep it short so that you don’t overwhelm the new readers as they start their literary journey as they transition from picture books. The age range is also developmental. In theory, children enter the realm of early readers and begin with the 500-word books, and then, as their skills develop, they move upwards to the more expansive 2,000-word level that prepares them to move into chapter books.
Early readers still have pictures, just like the picture books these young readers are probably still reading so that early readers serve as a transitionary stage between high pictures to less pictures as children learn more reading word skills. There is a balance between the words and the illustrations in early readers. There is a developmental method to the madness here. The children are learning how to read words. The text helps early readers develop those skills, while the pictures help tell the story (as they did in picture books) so that young readers don’t get frustrated and stop reading because they don’t understand the story. Children think in images. Early readers transition to think in the abstract, the word. As the children advance in their reading and the word count increases, you’ll see a decrease in the narrative illustrations because they learn to gain meaning from conceptual concepts (the words) rather than the visuals (the pictures). In terms of the illustrations, unless the writer is also an excellent illustrator, the writer need not concern himself with the images. The writer writes a great story with text; the publisher hires an illustrator to tell the same story with images. The writer usually has little influence on those images' look, style, or content; the publisher has authority there.
As I mentioned, early readers are a transitional stage. Kids are developing their cognitive abilities and are learning to decode words and sentences. They have short attention spans, which is why the illustrations help. When writing for early readers, you keep the sentences short and the words simple for the age group you are targeting, and you focus as much on creating an enjoyable experience for the kids as on creating a great story. Though they shouldn’t be aware of it, children who read early readers are developing phonetic recognition, word decoding, sight word skills, fluency, and basic comprehension abilities. The purpose of early readers is to build the children's confidence in their reading skills and make reading fun so that they become lifelong readers. In writing for an early reader book, think about how you are building the audience for other books directed at older ages. I take the responsibility seriously. This is a crucial age and a crucial step to building future readers.
There are three leveled reading systems labeled 1-3 that simply let teachers and parents know which books to recommend to early readers and what the next level is in terms of complexity. Level 1 has an elementary vocabulary, lots of repetition to reinforce those words, and short sentences. Level 2 gets more complicated with increased vocabulary, slightly longer sentences, and the introduction of new types of punctuation. (Level 1 has periods; Level 2 introduces commas and question marks; you get it.) Level 3 has even more complex sentences and varied vocabulary based on the age level, and the stories are reading like stories with beginning, middle, and end with all the tools we use to write for adults but keeping it simple, focusing on the single plotline (no subplots, multiple themes, etc.; those will start to be introduced later in chapter books.
The purpose of the three levels is not to grade the kids, as in you are better or worse than your friend at the next desk; it is to keep reading fun and build that all-important competence by matching appropriate level books with the young readers’ abilities. We don’t want any child to get discouraged by reading over their comprehension level. That’s when you hear, “I hate reading,” because it is so frustrating. We all start at level one. At this age, reading should be fun. Period. That’s it. So, levels are there to ensure that teachers and parents can appropriately match where the child is in terms of reading skills and allow a guided system for moving the child upwards as they develop incremental skills in confidence and word and story mastery.
A few takeaways for writing for this age group is to keep the language and sentence structure simple. Use repetitive text because you are teaching words and developing sight recognition. Keep the subject and theme of the story simple and focus on things the children already understand, including everyday experiences and representations of children they might already know. Don’t forget humor when writing for all children—humor rules at this age. The stories aim to show a child in their age group, usually a year or two older, solving problems and learning moral, life, or developmental lessons presented in a pill that’s easy to swallow and makes them giggle.
As a writer, remember your goal when writing for this age group. You are creating future readers. You are helping children transition from picture books, where the story is presented through images, to chapter books, where symbolic hieroglyphics called words are used to tell the story. You are building confident readers who are not afraid to tackle limited text so that they can later tackle more complex text. In a grandiose way, you hope to create the future readers of Faulkner and James Joyce. So, as a writer, build the confidence of these little people. Give them short books with simple stories that are told simply. Have them leave your books with a sense of accomplishment that, having read the book, they’ve really done something. Give them a story that is fun to read and foster that love of reading. It will make a massive difference to the life of that child and the future of all of us.
