Tips for Authors and Illustrators

Explore this section for ideas on creating engaging books and using UDL to reach different kinds of learners. Remember, you can go to "Resources" for images and text to use, as well as more ideas.

Book Content

Introduction

Genre:
Fiction | Nonfiction

Audience:
Age | Reading Level | Environment

Media:
Text | Images | Audio

Learning Approach

Decoding

Fluency

Comprehension:
Strategies | Coaches

Vocabulary

Sharing Books


Introduction

Before you start writing, ask yourself, Why am I writing this book? What do I personally want to convey? What really interests me? What stories do I want to tell? What do I want my readers to experience or learn? In the same way that painters are passionate about painting and teachers are passionate about teaching, writers are passionate about writing.

A good rule of thumb is to write about things you know or have personally experienced. If you spend a lot of time around children, then you probably have a lot of ideas about what they like to read about. With a purpose in mind, you're ready to think about the book content to include and the approach to learning that you will take.

Explore these links to see what other children's authors are passionate about:

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Book Content

So, you're ready to write a children's book, cool! Ask yourself, What do I want to write about? Do I want to write an ABC book for small children? Do I want to write an intriguing mystery for older children? To help you zero in on content, we provide tips for choosing a genre, considering your audience, and determining the amount and types of media to include.

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Genre

Children's books tend to fall into two broad categories: fiction and nonfiction.

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Fiction

Fiction books may take the form of picture books , short stories, and novels. Each of these formats consists of familiar genres, such as folktales, adventures, and mysteries. With the exception of poetry and little books written for emergent readers, fiction books usually contain recognizable story elements such as character, setting, conflict, plot, and theme.

Explore these links to learn more about story elements:

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Nonfiction

Nonfiction books are presented in a variety of ways, including simple picture books and chapter books, as well as complex textbooks and encyclopedias. Nonfiction books use informational text structures such as description, compare/contrast, and cause/effect. Each structure utilizes common signal words like first/last, same/different, and if/then, to help readers predict and comprehend the information.

Explore these links to learn more about informational text structures:

Since there is no limit to the creativity employed by writers, sometimes the boundaries between genres are blurred, as with realistic fiction and historical fiction. The following table teases out the concept of genre a bit further by reflecting on your purpose:

Genre Purpose
Narrative Tell about a series of events.
Procedural Give instructions for how to do something.
Expository Explain something.
Persuasive Encourage reader to do something.
Descriptive List the characteristics of something.

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Audience

Before leaping into writing, you might take a moment to consider your audience with respect to their age, reading level, and the setting in which you imagine them reading your book.

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Age

There is a substantial difference in content between books written for young readers and those written for older readers.

  • Books for young readers (grades K–2) typically include lots of pictures to supplement short, predictable, patterned text. These books might address instructional goals (counting, ABCs, rhyming), content area literacies (science, social studies, math), activities (going to the zoo, visiting grandma), or personal concerns (having pets, making friends).
  • Books for older readers (grades 3–5) tend to have more text and less support from pictures. They might address instructional goals (appreciating cultures, recognizing literary themes), content area literacies (science, social studies, math), activities (fieldtrips, camping), or personal concerns (solving disagreements, environmental issues).

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Reading Level

Within a single age group there is always diversity in reading ability. For instance, books that interest young readers may be too hard for some children and too easy for others. Similarly, a book written with an older audience in mind will be at an appropriate reading level for some and not for others. Use UDL Principles to design your book with as much flexibility as possible so that you can meet the needs of a diverse audience.

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Environment

The environment in which you imagine your readers will determine the content to include. Typical environments include children reading alone, children reading in small groups, and children reading with older learners and adults. If children will be reading alone or in homogeneous peer groups without guidance, try to keep most aspects of the text simple. If children will be reading with support from adults or more proficient peers, you can spice up the text with more difficult words, more complex structures, and nuanced or controversial themes. If you want your book to work in both situations, be sure to use the BookBuilder coaches to help with potentially challenging material. For example, a coach might suggest that students take a moment to summarize what's been read or make a prediction about what's to come.

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Media

In addition to text, printed books often contain media like illustrations, photographs, and diagrams. This is especially true for picture books designed for young readers, where the illustrations carry much of the meaning.

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Text

When writing or choosing the text for your book, think about your word choice. Try to use words that are familiar to your audience, but also include a few new words in order to increase children's reading vocabulary. The text should be divided up evenly, with a fairly equal amount of text on each page. For a picture book, each page should be limited to one or two sentences or paragraphs. Since each of these sentences or paragraphs will be accompanied by an illustration, the text should provide a variety of interesting scenes, characters, and actions. You might think of the text as captions for the illustrations.

Explore these links for tips on writing children's books and for gathering free text for your book:

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Images

When creating or choosing illustrations for your book, think about how you want to represent your topic. Do you want to convey your content through images, through text, or through a balance of both? Think about how the text and illustrations might complement each other and serve to increase readers' understanding of the text. As with the text, try to match the illustrations with the development needs of your audience. For example, young children prefer bold colors, while older children tend to appreciate nuanced colors. Whenever possible, choose illustrations that support the text rather than distract from it.

Explore these links for tips on illustrating children's books and for gathering free images for your book:

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Audio

When creating or choosing audio files for your book, think about how you want to represent your topic. Is the audio used to enhance student understanding of the text? Is the audio another means of representing the text? Are you using sound to illustrate a point or highlight some critical features best represented by a sound, such as the sounds of an animal or the sound of children laughing? You can record yourself reading the page, record or select sound effects, or use sound in other creative ways.

The sound that you record or choose should match the text as well as the intended audience. Sounds should not distract from the text but should support understanding or enhance the reading experience for engagment.

Explore these links for audio resources:

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Learning Approach

With your purpose and the content established, all you need to do is figure out the approach you will take. You might ask yourself, How am I going to go about writing this book? How will I meet the needs of diverse readers? How will I provide reading supports for many kinds of learners? The reading process is highly complex. While some children learn to read almost effortlessly, others struggle greatly. Reading requires decoding (often called sounding out the words), fluency (identifying words quickly and accurately), and comprehension (understanding what it means).

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers a framework to meet the needs of diverse readers by applying research in neuroscience that shows how everyone's brain processes information differently according to three primary brain networks:
  • Recognition networks, the "what" of learning. Recognition networks govern how we identify and categorize what we are reading. To support recognition, authors try to include multiple means of representation, or various methods for demonstrating ideas and concepts. For example, having the text read aloud by the computer represents the content in two ways—visually and aurally.
  • Strategic networks, the "how" of learning. Strategic networks help us organize and express our thoughts about what we are reading. To encourage strategy use, authors stimulate multiple means of expression, or various ways for readers to respond to the text. For example, the BookBuilder coaches might encourage children to talk about how the story reminds them of their own experience, or to imagine concepts from the book in their minds, two different strategies for expressing ideas about the text.
  • Affective networks, the "why" of learning. Affective networks influence whether we are challenged, excited, or interested in what we are reading. To address affective issues, authors provide multiple means of engagement, or various tactics to get the reader engaged with the content. For example, children can choose books that interest them the most, or use the strategy coaches they like best, two among the many options you can give young readers to engage their enthusiasm.

A UDL approach helps authors customize for individual differences in each of these three brain networks. By leveraging the power and flexibility of technology, a universally-designed book can embed reading scaffolds right in the text.

Explore these links to learn more about UDL:

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Decoding

One way to support decoding for young children is to create predictable, patterned text. It is not necessary to constrain the language to only the words that you think your readers might be able to decode. Feel free to use fun and interesting words (Tyrannosaurus Rex is always a favorite!) so long as you support the reader with surrounding text and illustrations that provide context clues for figuring out the tricky words, and author the reading coaches' support to help readers recognize the words.

When writing books for older readers, it's a good idea to support decoding by inserting definitions and pronunciation guides for potentially challenging words. For example, in a book about whales, you might briefly define the word echolocation and place a phonetic pronunciation (e.g., EK-oh-lo-KAY-shun) immediately after the word is used.

A highly effective way to scaffold the reading challenge for children who have visual impairments, are learning a new language, or are still developing their decoding skills is to use a text-to-speech (TTS) tool to alleviate the cognitive load of decoding and fluency so that readers can focus their energy on understanding and enjoying your online book. New computers include basic TTS tools, but if the computers your readers will be using don't have TTS, or if your audience requires a more sophisticated program with special features such as synchronized highlighting, natural sounding voices, or language translations, you might need to obtain a TTS tool.

Explore these links to obtain TTS tools:

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Fluency

Research has shown that fluency plays a significant role in reading. Fluency involves fast and accurate word recognition, reasonable pacing (not too slow, not too fast), phrasing (using appropriate word groupings and punctuation), and expression (proper emphasis and tone). Without fluency, it is hard to understand the message of a book.

To support reading fluency, authors try to write texts that sound like real language, with a predictable flow of ideas and events. Books for emergent readers tend to have short, simple sentences while books for proficient readers have complex sentences with punctuation to regulate phrasing.

The following techniques are great for promoting fluency:
  1. Read Aloud — Simply having a proficient reader such as a teacher, parent, or older child read aloud every day from high quality literature provides a model of fluent reading.
  2. Think Aloud — While reading aloud, stop every once in while to remark upon why you read a portion of the text in a certain way.
  3. Echo Reading — An experienced reader reads a section of the text aloud. Children "echo" the section back, pointing to each word as they say it.
  4. Paired Reading — A more capable reader, usually an adult, works individually with a struggling reader. The child chooses a book of interest. They begin reading in unison, until the child signals that s/he wants to read solo.
  5. Partner Reading — Children choose partners and read an entire story, taking turns. Older children can be trained to provide feedback on how their partner's reading sounded.
  6. Buddy Reading — Have older readers who are struggling read to younger children. Pick a book that is interesting to the younger children, then have the older ones practice it until they feel comfortable reading it aloud to the younger child(ren).
  7. Choral Reading — Whole groups of children read a passage (poems are good for this) simultaneously.
  8. Reader's Theatre — Adapt an interesting text into a play without props or with very minimal props (e.g., a hat, a book). Reader's Theatre provides an authentic reason to practice repeated readings.

Explore these links for examples of Reader's Theatre scripts:

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Comprehension

Decades of reading research have shown that proficient readers activate a host of comprehension strategies while reading. These "in-the-head" processes are automatic for skilled readers but may be absent for less skilled readers, especially those who struggle with decoding and fluency. BookBuilder provides authors with the means to embed universally-designed supports for comprehension directly into books through the use of animated characters, or coaches.

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Reading Strategies

The following list describes and provides examples of ten of the most common comprehension strategies used by proficient readers.

  1. Activating prior knowledge — Skilled readers tap into their prior knowledge about aspects of a text, such as the topic, author, illustrator, and text structure. This helps them to connect new information with their own background knowledge and beliefs in order to make sense of new information and find a place to store it in their heads. Sample prior knowledge prompts include:
    1. Think about what you already know about this topic.
    2. In what ways are folktales different from fantasy stories?
    3. What do you notice about the illustrator's style?
  2. Checking the picture for clues — Most readers know to check the picture for clues to what is stated in the text, but sometimes it helps to remind emergent readers to use this strategy, especially when the text is challenging. Sample picture clue prompts include:
    1. Look at the picture on this page. What do you see?
    2. Look at the picture for a hint.
    3. Check the picture to see if it has clues for a tricky part of the story.
  3. Predicting — Not only do we predict what a book is going to be about by looking at the title and cover, we predict the entire time we're reading as we speculate on what will come next and then see if the book confirms or disconfirms our predictions. Sample prediction prompts include:
    1. Look at the cover page. What do you think this book is about?
    2. What do you think is going to happen next?
    3. How do you think the main character is going to solve her problem?
  4. Rereading — Rereading is an excellent strategy for working out hard parts of the text and developing fluency. Skilled readers frequently reread in order to monitor their understanding. Sample rereading prompts include:
    1. When you reread this page, does it make more sense?
    2. Go back and reread any part of this story that was confusing to you.
    3. Try rereading when something doesn't sound right.
  5. Questioning — Proficient readers ask questions of the text before, during and after reading. Questioning before reading helps activate prior knowledge; questioning during reading ensures that the reader is understanding the author's intent; questioning after reading cements ideas in the reader's head and sets the stage for new questions. Sample questioning prompts include:
    1. Ask a question about something important to know and remember.
    2. Think of some questions that a teacher might ask.
    3. What do you wish you could ask the author?
  6. Clarifying — Clarifying is a specific questioning strategy that is used when something is confusing or unclear during reading. Sometimes readers who struggle need to be reminded to ask for clarification rather than passively accepting confusion. Sample clarification prompts include:
    1. Find a part of the book that was confusing.
    2. Think about something that might be confusing for someone else.
    3. What might be hard to understand on this page?
  7. Making personal connections — Readers continually make personal connections to the ideas and events that are presented in books. These connections engage the affective network and foster comprehension by forming links between the text and oneself, the text and other texts, and the text and the world. Sample connection prompts include:
    1. How do you think the main character feels?
    2. In what ways does this remind you of other books by this author?
    3. What are the differences between what is happening in the story and what has happened in your life?
  8. Visualizing — Visualization is an useful strategy for both nonfiction and fiction texts, especially when there are limited illustrations. Visualization helps readers make connections with characters in a story or imagine complex processes described in an informational text. Sample visualization prompts include:
    1. Close your eyes and try to see it in your mind.
    2. In what ways does the image you have in your mind match what the book says?
    3. Imagine yourself in the story. What do you see around you?
  9. Summarizing — Summarizing is considered the most difficult comprehension strategy. However, it is essential that readers be able to identify important ideas. Young readers are often asked to retell a story (an oral summary that may include some details), while older readers may be invited to form a synthesis (adding personal connections to a brief summary, or summarizing several texts at once). Sample summarization prompts include:
    1. Think about what's happened so far.
    2. What do you think the author is trying to teach?
    3. What is the moral or lesson to this story?
  10. Reflecting — Active, engaged readers reflect while they read. They may think about a favorite part of the text, ponder a new idea, or evaluate their emerging understanding. Reflection is a form of metacognition (thinking about one's own thinking) that enhances reading comprehension. Sample reflection prompts include:
    1. What is your favorite part of the book?
    2. When you think about this topic, what comes to mind?
    3. In what ways have you improved in your understanding of this topic?

Explore these resources for reading comprehension strategies:

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Coaches

Because you might not be able to sit next to every child who reads your online book, BookBuilder offers reading coaches to extend your "teaching reach." The coaches are also great to use in a tutoring or read-together session you might have with a child. You can either use the default names (Pedro, Hali, and Monty) or you can choose your own names for the coaches. The goal is to use the coaches consistently in the book yet flexibly, recognizing that not every reader nor every page of a text requires a coach. Try to avoid using coaching prompts that require a simple yes/no answer, such as, "Do you like this book?" or "Does the character have a problem?" Rather use the coaches to engage students, provide students with supports that draw them into the text, images, or audio or images and help them think critically about the content.

Suggestions for Using the Pre-Named Coaches

In our model books, we use the default coaches: Pedro for prompts, Hali for hints, and Monty for modeling a good response.

Pedro
Pedro 		Pedro engages the affective and strategic networks by lightheartedly prompting readers to actively think about the text using one or more comprehension strategies. Examples of Pedro's Prompts include:
  • Let's make a prediction. What do you think this story is about?
  • This is a good place to make a connection. What games do you play with your friends?
  • Now that you've reached the end of the story, this is a good place to summarize what happened.
Hali
Hali 		Halli engages the strategic network by providing hints in the form of a peer's response to Pedro's prompts. Examples of Halli's Hints include:
  • Look at the picture and read the title. This will help you make a prediction.
  • Think about some games that you like to play outside.
  • Remember that a good summary tells what the text is mainly about. This story is mainly about what happens to Snake and Eagle when Snake gets too hot, so I would look for those details.
Monty
Monty 		Monty engages the recognition network by offering models of expert strategy use and think-alouds that show how he is actively making sense of the text. Examples of Monty's Models include:
  • I see that the title is Tadpoles, and the picture shows tadpoles swimming in the water. I predict this story will be about tadpoles.
  • I like to play tag with my friends outside.
  • Eagle was flying so close to the sun that Snake's blood started to boil. Snake became so hot that he burned off Eagle's hair. Eagle threw Snake to the ground, and when Snake landed his legs fell off. Ever since, all of Eagle's children are bald, and all of Snake's children must slither on their stomachs.

Suggestions for creating your own coach name and functions

The three coaches can be named as you begin your book, and you can choose any role you like for them. We suggest that whatever name and role you choose remains consistent throughout the book. Students learn to count on coaches to give a particular kind of help, and often they select just one because they find that particular kind of help useful. In our model books we used names whose first initial matches the coaches' functions (Pedro for prompts, Hali for Hints, and Monty for models). This kind of subtle cuing can be helpful for students, but of course is not required!

When setting up your book, select names for your coaches:
Coach Name Selection

Here are some examples of ways to use the coaches in different kinds of texts. The words in parenthesis are ideas for mnemonic associations with these names. Your imagination is the limit!

Type of Text Pedro Hali Monty
History: Primary Source

Harry (History)

Poses a series of prompts reminding the reader to qualify and evaluate the source:
Who wrote this?
Was it near to the time of the described events?
Did the person have a particular axe to grind?
Who was the audience?

Lisa (Left)

Gives an opinion or interpretation that represents a particular point of view (these two points of view model for readers that there can be different and correct interpretations)

Roger (Right)

Gives an opinion or interpretation that represents a different point of view
Autobiographical story

Name coach after yourself as author

One of the agents can be the voice of the author, commenting on the writing process, what they were feeling or thinking at that point in the story

Connie (Connection)

Do you have pets too? What are their names?

Have you ever done this? What was it like?

Fred (Feeling)

Has this ever happened to you? How did you feel?

It seems that X is sad right now. Have you ever felt that way?
Informational Text Nancy (notes)

Explore these Model Books to see the BookBuilder coaches in action:

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Vocabulary

Research in vocabulary development suggests that words can be categorized into three levels, or "tiers." Tier one words are basic words known by most students; tier two words occur frequently but are unfamiliar to many students; tier three words are uncommon words specific to a particular book or passage. When you create a glossary, make sure to include tier two words—those that are common, somewhat difficult, and important for students to learn in order to build a rich vocabulary. You might also want to include tier three words—specialized words essential for understanding your book—even if they are uncommon.

When you create glossary definitions, use sounds and images as well as text, to provide multiple representations of meaning.

Explore this resource for information on building vocabulary:

Read these two resources to learn more about vocabulary development:
  • Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. New York: The Guilford Press. Available at Amazon.com
  • Nagy, W. E. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills. The National Council of Teachers of English. The International Reading Association. Available at Amazon.com

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Sharing Books

Book sharing enables you to share your completed book with others and look for books to use with your students. Shared books are available for all who visit the CAST UDL Book Builder website. These books are randomly screened but not edited or approved for quality by CAST staff. Therefore, we request that before sharing your book, you confirm that:
  • Text, images, and audio are correctly attributed to their creators;
  • No content (text, images, or audio) is objectionable;
  • Students' pictures and names are not included in your shared books.

CAST reserves the right to delete a book from the shared book library for any reason without notice.

Please note, we have posted books for emergent readers created by Massachusetts teams of educators and parents, funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Education. These books are available in Shared Books Library with a group name: MA DOE Project

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Terry's Tips
Terry's Tips

Once you have a great story, use the coaches to help children get the most out of it. Write and add text for the coaches that will get readers thinking and talking. What might happen next? Does the story remind you of something that happened to you?

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