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The first-grade blues
I have only a few memories from my early years at school. Once, I was chosen to check the weather and pin a rain cloud to the board (it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest); another time, I collected snails with my friend Jennifer and made them a shoe-box home. Those are good memories.
But when it comes to academics, I have some not-so-good memories. Like at the start of first grade, when the teacher showed my classmates and me a shelf with a row of little baskets, each with twenty or so small books. She explained that we would all start with the basket labeled “1,” and once we’d read those books, we could move on to basket 2, and so on. We all eagerly got started. Some of my classmates read through basket 1 and started on basket 2 that same week. Others took a little longer, but one by one, everyone in my class moved on.
Everyone but me.
I was stuck on basket 1. I was stuck there for so long that the teacher eventually moved me to basket 2 so she could make space on the shelf for basket 5, which some kids had already reached. By the end of the school year, I thought I was stupid, and it sucked.
On to second grade! The first week was wonderful: the whole class had to start on the new classroom’s basket 1. I was delighted; I hadn’t been left behind. I resolved that this year, I would move through the baskets just like everyone else. You can probably guess what happened. I still couldn’t read, and my heart sank. I felt all the shame and humiliation of being stuck, yet again, on basket 1.
Feeding heads, lifting hearts
This memory is one of the main reasons I started writing the Meg and Greg books with my sister. I wanted to publish a book that not only helped children like me learn to read but also allowed them to experience reading a beginner book that didn’t come from the level 1 basket. I wanted the book to look like the books other kids of the same age were reading. So, along with the carefully planned pedagogy that went into our Meg and Greg books, we tried to put in a big dose of “cool.” The way we see it, we included some features for our readers’ heads and some for their hearts.
For our readers' heads
Let’s start with the pedagogy, the stuff for the head. The Meg and Greg stories have several key features:
Decodable text: A student who knows all the basic consonants and short vowel sounds is ready to read these stories.
Spelling concepts: Each story introduces a new concept like ck, sh, th, and ch.
Cumulative: All subsequent stories use words with previously introduced concepts.
Few tricky words: We avoid uncommon tricky words completely (like coyote and island) and include common ones (like the, of, and to) as sight words to memorize.
Shared reading: An experienced, buddy reader reads every left-hand page and the learner reads the right-hand page. This has many pluses: We can use more advanced words on the left page to keep the story engaging and fast-paced, and the learner gets a break and can listen to more fluent reading. Importantly, the learner’s text on the right page is crucial to the story. It isn’t just extra text; without it, the story doesn’t make sense.
Short chapters: Each story has five chapters of four to eight pages.
Recognizable letters: We use a font that mimics hand-printed letters. This is particularly important for the first few books, so new readers aren’t confronted with double-decker forms of the letters a and g (see image).
Text labels: We include one- and two-word labels in lowercase letters to illustrations, especially in the earlier books, for readers who are overwhelmed by reading sentences and want to start smaller.
Shaded paper: The text for learners is printed on gray-shaded paper to reduce contrast between the black letters and a stark white page. Some people find this easier on the eyes.
Line spacing: The text has extra space between lines to make it easier to focus on reading one word at a time.
Controlled text: In books 1 to 4, the text for learning readers has short, tightly controlled sentences. We do this using a graphic-novel style.
Stepping it up: In books 5 to 8, the text transitions emerging readers slowly toward reading more prose. Some sentences get a little longer, but the text remains carefully controlled. The pages still have line drawings.
Practice activities: Each story ends with a few fun activities with the spelling concept.
For our readers' hearts
And now to take care of the social-emotional dimension, the stuff for the heart. The Meg and Greg stories have several features to make the books look and feel cool and decidedly not from the metaphorical level 1 basket:
Chapters: It’s a big moment when a child starts reading chapter books.
Graphic novel style: Graphic novels are popular with a lot of kids.
Black-and-white line drawings: The illustrations are detailed, fun, graphic-novelesque line drawings, but they aren’t in color as you’d see in a picture book.
Book size: With four stories, each book is thick enough to have a wide, visible spine instead of being a flimsy, stapled reader. And face on, the books are the same size as a traditional chapter book.
Unobtrusively educational: While we include information about the spelling concepts for parents and teachers, most of it is “hidden” at the end so that the book doesn’t look like an educational primer.
Three entry points: (1) Text labels let very new readers take part in some reading; (2) the right-hand pages let learning readers develop and practice their skills in a controlled way; and (3) the left-hand pages, ostensibly for the buddy reader, let more advanced readers pick up the book, not realize it’s for a beginner, and just read the whole thing.
Together, all these features help new readers, especially struggling new readers, avoid some of the shame and humiliation of having to read babyish books while they’re gaining decoding skills and eventually reading fluency. The truth is, my sister and I can’t eliminate all the social-emotional impacts on kids who are struggling to learn the basics of reading, but we hope we’re improving their journey when they come across and start reading a Meg and Greg book.
The Authors of Meg & Greg (and this blog)
Elspeth Rae, a literacy teacher who helps kids of all abilities learn to read, was diagnosed with dyslexia a few years after her first- and second-grade reading humiliations, and she got the specialized help she needed to learn to read. She holds a BSc (Hospitality Management) and BEd and is currently pursuing graduate work while teaching at a public school in British Columbia. Rowena Rae, Elspeth’s sister, didn’t experience the same reading challenges and turned her voracious reading habit into a career. She’s a freelance editor and writing coach, and she writes science books for middle graders as well as collaborating with—and learning a huge amount about the English language from—Elspeth. She also lives in British Columbia. Please visit us at www.megandgregbooks.com. Email us at megandgregbooks@gmail.com.
