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Write Your Children's Book or An Easy Reader for Older, Struggling Readers


cars, book
My high interest low vocabulary book, Cars! made at Tar Heel Reader


High Interest, Low Vocabulary Books for Older Struggling Readers

When young children are learning to read they do so using books that are at their instructional level--books they can read independently with little help from others.  These books are designed to capture the readers' interest and they are written using appropriate vocabulary.

What happens, however, if you don't learn to read as quickly as those around you? You could find yourself a high school student (or beyond) struggling with basic reading.  If so, you will quickly realize that the books at your instructional reading level could very well be too childish for you.  What is the solution?  High interest, low vocabulary books or books designed to keep an older person's interest while still being written at a level that makes word identification easier and making meaning more accessible.

  Where can these high interest low vocabulary books be found?  Very few places, but you (and your students) can make your own using Tar Heel Reader, a program created and operated by students of education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Below are the instructions I give my students for making their own high interest, low vocabulary books.

I most recently had my English Language Learners (ELLs) make their own books using this resource, and I created one for them so that I could share it with them as a model.  I recommend that you peruse the site and choose a few books to share with your students.  Also, try making your own so that you can see how easy the process is and so that you can help students with any technical difficulties they might encounter.

Read my high interest, low vocabulary book on Cars! and then get started making books with your students.


Making Books

  1. Go to tarheelreader.org
  2. Read some of the books there to get a feel for what they are like.
  3. Brainstorm a list of topics you are interested in writing about.  Share those with your teacher.
  4. Pick one topic, and complete a story map.
  5. When you are ready to write, go back to the home page and click the second option, “write a book.”
  6. Click on the link “registration page” at the top.  Create your free account.  The invitation code is Literacy!
  7. Once you’ve registered, you’ll have to check your email to finish the process.
  8. Then click on “writing your book” at the bottom of the page.
  9. At the top of the page, enter a word to search for pictures you might want to use in your book.  For example, I searched for “cars” when writing my book about cars.  You can also upload your own pictures.
  10. When you find a picture you want to use, click on it.  It will appear at the bottom of your page as a page in your book.
  11. Continue finding pictures until you have what you need.
  12. Then, scroll to the bottom of the page and enter a title for your book. 
  13. Use the icons on the pictures to move them (green arrow, left or right) or to remove them (big red x).
  14. You can type the words to go with each picture in the box beneath the picture.
  15. When you are finished, save your book as a draft so that Mrs. Faulkner can read it with you, and help you make grammatical and story changes.
  16. Then, you can add tags that will help people find it when they’re searching for a book on subjects they are interested in.
  17. After your book has been approved, click on “publish my book."
  18. Bask in the glory of being a published author.

Remember, your book will be read by thousands of people learning to read across the entire world, so you want to make it as interesting and as good as possible!

What Next? Or Other Ways to Use Tarheel Reader in Your Class

  • After your students have written their own books, you can have them read each other's books during silent reading.
  • When having students do research, you can have them represent their results in a book--creating a multi-genre research project.
  • You can use this site to write your own easy versions of more difficult texts.
How else can you use this resource in your classroom?  Please share your ideas and experiences with us here.

Multi-Genre Research 

To learn more about multi-genre research, read the following old posts in which I describe and reflect on my implementation of the multi-genre memoir project in which students research where they are from and create a final product that is comprised of a variety of genres:
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