Menu
Early readers are perhaps the most misunderstood and the smallest category of kidlit. They’re read by kids in that brief window of time where they’re taking on texts independently for the first time.
But they’re not quite ready for longer works yet. They still need lots of illustrations and guidance along the way, even if they’re eager to read more like the big kids do. So what does that mean for you as an author? Here are three things to consider as you write early readers.
This one I’ll admit is anecdotal. But when kids start reading books on their own, they can read through a lot of titles in a short amount of time. This means that teachers and parents, but especially teachers who need to fill their classroom libraries, are always on the hunt for high-quality early readers their kids will enjoy and read again and again.
Because this is the first text that kids read on their own, you will see a lot of sight words, CVC and CVCe words, word family words, and digraphs and blends. The readability for these types of books must be precise so that it’s not too difficult for the young reader.
Sight words: words that kids need to be able to read on sight; words that kids often can’t sound out.
CVC words: consonant-vowel-consonant. These three-letter words have a short vowel and are usually part of a word family, such as -at, -an, -et, -en, -ig, -in, -og, -ot, -ug, and -un.
CVCe words: consonant-vowel-consonant-silent e. These four-letter words have a long vowel sound and a silent e at the end of the word.
Word families: For example, the -an word family include words like can, fan, man, ran, tan, and van.
Digraphs and blends: For example, sh, wh, th, gr, fr.
If you want to write early readers, make sure that you are working with an editor who is familiar with the category and has a background in early childhood education and literacy. (Like maybe me. Just saying.)
We don’t want to strain the eyes of our young readers as they are learning to focus on squiggles and lines and turn them into meaningful text. So you will find short sentences on each page in a larger font than you usually find in a picture book. This will help kids track their print and read across the page from left to right. The illustration is still there to help them decode words they don’t recognize, but the short sentences and large font will help them too.
Most early readers right now are coming from the traditional publishing space. But that could change in the next few years as more writers, and especially teacher-writers, enter the kidlit space. Are you ready to give early readers a try?
📚 Check out more resources to help you write, market, and publish your book here.
📚 I offer book coaching and editing for authors of picture books, chapter books, and middle grade and YA novels. Are you ready to get started? Send me a message to tell me about your book.
Jennifer Navarre is a kidlit editor and book coach who spends her days helping authors refine their audience and their story as they develop their picture books, chapter books, and middle grade and YA novels.
She’s worked in prose and rhyme on books for kids, tweens, and teens and led presentations on writing and education at conferences across the US.
Jennifer is a part of many online writing communities as both a writer and an editor and is a champion procrastinator when getting her own stories out of her head and onto the page.
