What we do at Learning A-Z is, I think, pretty unique, pretty amazing. Every one of our books was written, designed, created with absolute purpose for teaching a child to read at that level.
In order to make a book, it takes many people. I would say there are probably at least 20 people that touch one book. So the Reading A-Z book process starts with an idea, and the idea can come from a lot of different places. I'm one of the editors here that comes up with book ideas.
We're really open to ideas from people, and we're always just trying to figure out where and how those ideas can work. We get book idea requests from teachers and districts sometimes. We even have ideas come to us from students in classrooms across the world, who will send us letters giving us ideas. And they'll actually help us to write them.
We get the idea, and then it goes through manuscript stages. We write the book, we edit the book.
Internally, we have a lot of teachers that work here. I ask them many questions, because the most important thing for me is to create something instructionally viable.
We are a team of teachers who really know what it's like to be in the classroom, and we really want to make materials that we would have liked to use.
It's like a treasure trove; there's so many things that you can use to teach. And that's really important, because we have to provide a little bit of everything, in order to make sure that teachers have what they need to successfully teach during the day.
What really sets us apart and sets our resources apart is our text leveling system. The detail in our leveling system means that each book is accurately leveled, and consistent at that level. We have a lot of creative control here, and a lot of personal investment in making sure the book is the best that it can be, and everyone is working together towards that goal.
Everything that we make is weeks, months of planning. And there's nothing that ends up on our website that hasn't been through tons of review. That's so important to what we do here every single day. Our workflow process ensures that there's so many checks and balances, because so many eyes have seen them, and because we really care about what we put out for the classroom.
We do it with heart. And we want to make the teaching experience as best as possible, for all learners.
And there's so many things that go into creating this one resource that you're holding in your hand, and a team of super-talented people dedicated to creating the best product that they can create every single day.Every book that we work on kind of feels like a baby to us, you know?
The editor and designer, and the art and photo – all different teams who come together to work on this book. They're really just lovingly hand-crafted by the entire publishing team, and then they're given out to the world. They're just generally excellent products, I have to say. I am very passionate about this. And ultimately, what we think about is the teacher and the student. That's always our focus.
Everything is made with a dedication and so much excitement. We get art back, and we're, like, "Ooh, look at this, this is so awesome!"
And we just know that some kid's going to open that book up and be, like, whoa, that's cool, you know?
While they're looking at this book, while they're reading it, they're going to become better readers.
