What You Might Write for an Educational Publisher

As I said in the previous post, educational publishing runs the gamut from board books to college texts. Below you'll find a list of types of writing you might do at the very lowest levels in this market, with suggestions of a few publishers who market each type of product. The list is not exhaustive, but it should give you a starting point for finding materials and publishers that you might want to explore.


Board Books - Rourke, PowerKids, DK

• There has been a push for nonfiction board books in the last couple of years, especially with the Common Core Standards moving much of in-school reading to nonfiction texts. Nonfiction board books give even the youngest readers an introduction to informational reading. Take a look at Rourke's nonfiction board books, and their Little Birdie Board Books. 

Leveled Readers - Red Rocket Readers, Teacher Created Materials, Bellwether 

Many educational publishers have a line of leveled readers. A true leveled reader collection contains lots of books that allow readers to progress incrementally in their journey toward fluency. The goal of any leveled reader program is to develop word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.   Look at Red Rocket Readers designed by Pam Holden, 30-year Reading Recovery teacher. These are out of New Zealand. Also see TCM's Time for Kids Readers. Rigby from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is also a big name in leveled readers. 

Bellwether books are similar in feel to leveled readers, but they are produced for the library market in library bound editions. 

Early Nonfiction - Heinemann (Acorn), Capstone (Pebble, Pebble Plus), ABDO (Sandcastle) 

You'll find many choices for early nonfiction among the educational publishers. The larger publishers have imprints that identify their early nonfiction.

Next week we'll look at some of the more traditional nonfiction publishers for elementary students.