Kids seem to be in two categories: kids who enjoy books and kids who are more physical. The kids who enjoy books are easy to get reading, and this is something parents can instill when they’re growing from infant to young adult. But the kids who enjoy being more physical want to be outside playing and doing other things. Reading to them might be painful and they will probably shy away from it.
- Image via Wikipedia
That’s OK! Kids all progress at different times in different ways.
But your job as an early reader writer is to get those physical kids excited about reading. That’s not easy, but if you realize that going in, you’ll write a much better book that’s much more likely to sell.
Here are the tips we covered yesterday:
- short sentences
- simple words with some longer ones thrown in that are familiar to stretch their abilities, like “knife,” for example.
- pictures to reinforce the words
And here’s something we haven’t covered — age-appropriate content.
Early readers think of themselves as “big” girls and boys. They are out of diapers, know what most physical items are called and the words to use for them, and they just aren’t babies anymore. They want to be readers!
Well, some of them.
So, you have to hook the other kids by writing about stuff they enjoy — sports, running in the woods, playing at the gym, and so on. Give them physical things to think about and that might help them to stay interested. Everything else applies to them, too. But they’ll be your hardest audience. So, if you want to write for early readers, keep this in mind. Add something physical to your books and you’ll attract both book lovers and book haters. Voila!
