Grades 3-6.

I spend a lot of time writing for kids. It isn’t as easy as you think. Vocabulary should be challenging, but not too challenging. News stories and science articles should be high-interest, but not overly complicated (kids will lose interest pronto). Graphs, sidebars, photos . . . all of those features play an important role in sparking kids’ imaginations while maybe, just maybe, teaching them a fact or two along the way. As more and more educators face increasingly difficult and ever-changing challenges in their in-person and remote classrooms, quality narrative nonfiction has become essential to the way kids read, learn, and think.

A daily news app for kids ages 7-10 called News-O-Matic, created by Press4Kids, and the educationally rich Newsela (K-12), are perfect examples of how kids (and their parents and teachers) can use technology to their learning advantage. Sure, I enjoyed being a part of their writing, leveling, and editing teams. But objectively speaking, they are still great tools kids can use to learn about what’s happening in the world around them in a fun and engaging way.

So, too, Scholastic’s award-winning in-classroom magazines. For many years, I have been a contributing writer. I was also an editor at Storyworks, Scholastic’s language arts publication for grades 3-6. Each issue was packed with narrative nonfiction pieces, read-aloud plays adapted from classic stories and popular movies, fiction written by celebrated authors, and poetry. Additional reading and skills-based activities were also included in the print edition and on the magazine’s website, including grammar exercises, compare & contrast essay-writing prompts, test-prep bubble tests, and more.