This feature reviews books, articles, websites, or other resources that discuss beginning readers.

Taking a pause from my reviews of the recommended Geisel Award reading to put a spotlight on a recent article in Children & Libraries — the journal of the Association for Library Service to Children.

The Best for Beginning Readers: Geisel Award Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

Carole D. Fiore and Carla Morris. Children & Libraries. Vol. 13, Number 1, Spring 2015.

The article provides first a brief summary of the Geisel Award thus far. It it a wonderful resource to have small snippets about each winner and a list of the honors, as well as quotes from many of the Geisel committee chairs and even some of the authors!

My absolute favorite part of the article broke down the statistics of the Geisel Award: how many picture books or early chapter books were honored versus the traditional beginning readers. Did you know that the Geisel Award has even honored non-fiction books and graphic novels? To see the full break-down of statistics (including what seems to capture the interest of beginning readers: animal stories, friendship stories, etc.), check out the article!

The last main portion of the article talks about the impact on both authors and committee members. Here’s the part of the article that you may need a tissue for if you’re anything like me. I love reading about the experiences and impacts of an award committee.

The article’s final conclusion talks about the future of the Geisel Award.

What an amazing article to have! This is the ultimate primer about what the Geisel Award is all about without reading the award committee manual. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for this one — it’s for everyone!

This feature reviews books, articles, websites, or other resources that discuss beginning readers.

I’m starting with some of the recommended reading from the Geisel Award Committee Manual.

Start at the Very Beginning: A Conversation with Margaret Jensen about Books for Beginning Readers

Tana Elias. Friends of the CCBC Newsletter. Accessed: June 3, 2015.

This article is an interview with Margaret Jensen who held workshops in the lat 1990s about books for beginning readers.

I thought this article was a valuable resource for people curious about evaluating beginning readers. I learned a lot of important things about beginning reader’s eye development. According to Jensen, beginning readers can only see about four letters at a time; two letters to the left and one to two letters to the right. This put the necessity for smaller words in beginning readers into immediate context to me. Smaller words are easier to *see*, not necessarily to sound out. I also learned about what kind of text lay-out is preferred and approximately how much white space should be in and around words.

Jensen also discusses how children learn words — “sight vocabulary” is the term she uses for the words that children memorize vocabulary. This may explain why children often say a completely unrelated word to what they are reading, but it may begin with the same letter as the word they are struggling with.

Also included in this article/interview: additional reading recommendations and advice for parents & librarians.

A great read for anyone looking to further their study with beginning reader texts.

This feature reviews books, articles, websites, or other resources that discuss beginning readers.

I’m starting with some of the recommended reading from the Geisel Award Committee Manual.

Top 10 Easy Readers: 2004

Ilene Cooper. Booklist, 2004. Accessed: June 3, 2015.

This article is a round-up of ten titles reviewed in Booklist between July 2003 and June 2004. The selections include both fiction and non-fiction, with a variety of publishers and houses represented. It’s a great time capsule of the year and can be used to help build a core collection of beginning readers. The reviews of each book are simple and straight-forward making this a quick article for librarians to read and gain information from.