More About Books For
Young Learners
This ever expanding
collection currently contains 174 titles in English
in and 82 titles in Spanish. Each year we will publish additional
titles in
English and titles in Spanish. Books for Young Learners in
Spanish are
authentic adaptations from English. The English/Spanish
Companion Sets,
provide the same book in English and Spanish so Spanish-speaking
parents
can read along as their children learn to read. They are ideal for
ESL, LEP
and bilingual programs.
The Books for Young Learners
collection is a broad literacy framework
for developing readers and writers who think critically and
communicate
effectively. The collection comprises stand-alone books that
increase in
complexity and concepts and complement each other. The individual
titles
in the Books for Young Learners collection support
teachers in developing
effective readingg
skills in young students. All of the nonfiction titles in the
collection are correlated to Common Core State Standards. Work is
in
progress to correlate the rest of the collection to CCSS.
Books for Young Learners are charming valuable books, appropriate
for
instructional use with emergent, early, and fluent readers in
primary grades.
The Books for Young Learners Teacher
Resource by Margaret Mooney
offers
a wealth of information on the unique features of each book. Sample
questions
and prompts help teachers introduce and support students through
some of the
content and some of the skills and understandings that they need
when reading
for meaning.
Before publishing a book is first trialed
in a black and white version with
teachers and children in American schools. Results of the trialing
lead to
refinement in text and illustrations.
The trialing also
provides data used to level each book for shared, guided,
and independent reading. That information is reflected in the
teacher friendly
leveling bar on the back of each book and
in the levels and approaches chart.
For more detailed information about each book in the collection see
the
Levels and Approaches Chart.
Books for Young Learners offers variety of trim size and formats
across many
genres of writing. The books are uniformly high quality exploration
of topics of
interest to young children worldwide.
Fundamental
beliefs
Richard C. Owen Publishers, Inc. first became involved with 'little
books' in the mid 1980s. Marie Clay was in the United States
piloting Reading Recovery in Columbus, Ohio. Richard Owen met Dr.
Clay when she came to New York University to give a seminar about
Reading Recovery. She said she was having difficulty finding
appropriate books to use with children. Richard contacted the New
Zealand Ministry of Education and made arrangements to bring over
their National Reading Program.
That connection was the start of a relationship that lasted ten
years. We had the opportunity to work with representatives of the
Ministry and to learn from them how they approached developing
resources to use with children. One of the first lessons we learned
was that Books children are exposed to in the classroom should
reflect qualities they will find in libraries and bookstores.
We took the idea to heart when we started publishing Books for Young
Learners (BYL) in 1995. Our books look like trade books. They have
different trim sizes, different cover designs and text designs, and
different type faces, both on the covers and on interior pages.
They do not look like a reading series!
The New Zealanders also taught us to Start with Story. The
first criterion we use when selecting manuscripts for publication is
to ask the question, Does it have charm, magic, impact, and
appeal? We want our books to invite readers and engage
readers and hold their attention. We ask Will the book
withstand repeated reading? And we consider whether chunks
of language and meaning from the story will resurface at later
times. When that happens it is truly magical.
Additional considerations include Is the idea worthwhile? Is the
story's shape and structure appropriate? Is the language
effective? Is the story authentic? Do the illustrations help the
reader gain meaning from the text? The final question, Is
the format of the book appropriate? brings us back to issues of
trim size and design.
If we think we can meet our goal to Start with Story, we can
begin the work of identifying teaching points and developing
instructional purpose.
We want our published books to embody the qualities of the best of
juvenile trade books, but also provide teachers with abundant
opportunities to help children become skilled, competent, and
enthusiastic readers. We hope you agree.
Richard
C. Owen Publishers, Inc.