Kathleen Powers

When my older son, Billy, finished first grade, he couldn’t read. It came as a surprise, but at the time I was overwhelmed with a new baby too. I vowed that at the end of the summer and by September, he would read. I found Rudolf Flesch’s “Why Johnny Can’t Read,” and we began lessons with a strictly phonetic approach, reading list after list of words. My son hated it. I hated it. But those lists worked.

To supplement the lists, I searched my library for beginning reader books. I found Dr. Seuss and Margaret Hillert books—great, but not enough. So I began writing my own books with consonant-vowel-consonant words. In September, my son entered second grade, reading on grade level. Guilt avoided.

Time passed. I began tutoring neighborhood kids how to read. My sister, Anne, an art teacher, sketched drawings for my stories. Kids loved the funny themes and pictures. This encouraged Anne and me to polish the stories.

More time passed. I went back to school and earned my master’s degree in education. I tutored students how to read and how to write. My husband, Bill, suggested I start blogging. (Blogging? What’s blogging?) But I did. Comicphonics.com offered suggestions to other parents about how to teach reading. EnglishWritingTeacher.com presented information on good writing plus how to teach writing to children.

Bill suggested I turn the EnglishWritingTeacher blogs into a book. From that idea came “How to Write a 5th Grade (or Any Other Grade) Essay,” published in the winter of 2018.

Meanwhile I researched the features of good picture books for beginning readers and simplified the texts of my picture books. My sister refined her illustrations and added color. My husband designed covers and formatted everything. My younger son, Patrick, suggested activity pages to reinforce the vocabulary and extend the learning.

On July 6, 2019, we published five beginning readers.

Now while still tutoring reading and writing, I am learning how to market our reading books and preparing more stories for publication.