New Worlds Reading
October 2023 - Present
New Worlds Reading is a state-funded initiative administered by the UF Lastinger Center for Learning, aimed at fostering a lifelong love of reading among elementary students. Each month Scholastic Publishing sends a book to participating elementary students across Florida. Recipients can choose to receive their materials in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, or Braille. New Worlds Reading also provides supplemental materials for classrooms, including Teacher Reading Guides and Regional Partner Resources, as well as extracurricular events
FOCUS
Educational Design, Layout, Print Materials
SOFTWARE
InDesign, Illustrator
SOFTWARE
Interactive Reading Guide
Teacher Reading Guide
Regional Partner Materials
Interactive Reading Guides
English (2nd Grade)
Spanish (4th Grade)
Haitian Creole (Kindergarten)
Braille (VPK)
Displayed above are four examples of completed Instructional Reading Guides, with one example for each language we produce materials in, demonstrating how each language is utilized. For the Spanish and Haitian Creole versions, it is important to note that the activities remain in English to support comprehension skills practiced in the classroom, as instruction and testing in Florida schools is conducted in English. Additionally, the Braille design incorporates high-contrast elements, such as a dark blue background with white text and outlined activities, intentionally designed for accessibility to users with low vision.
Teacher Reading Guide
The Teacher Reading Guide is utilized by teachers in the classroom to help guide their lesson plans and class activities. These guides are not utilized by students so they are a lot more information heavy with less visual cues to include all necessary information. Teachers print the guides themselves so it is important that the designs stay within the margins and that the information be limited to 4 pages. If it is very information dense or if they would like to provide an extra page for an activity that is doable as well.
Regional Partner Materials
Book-Based Activity Sheet
Book-Based Facilitator Guide
At Regional Partner local events, children are provided books and an activity sheet to read and work together through with the help of a facilitator. The facilitator is also provided a guide to help navigate them through the activity to make sure everyone is on topic. This alignment can be seen by the two Book-Based materials shown above and in how they have similar layout styles to make sure everything remains consistent.
Workshop Slide Deck
Workshop Facilitator Guide
Additionally, at Regional Partner events there will be a Workshop slideshow to teach new concepts and skills for participants to use with their young learners. This Workshop Slide Deck shows a few slides of what could be included in this demonstration and show how these slides are designed. The facilitators are also provided and Workshop Facilitator Guide to assist them during the Slide Deck so they know what to have prepared beforehand and what points to make sure to emphasize.
Interactive Reading Guide Creation Process (Inner Right)
Templates
To provide a glimpse of what our Instructional Reading Guide process looks like I have highlighted one page to show how we start from a Google Doc filled with content to a fully designed Guide.
Step-by-Step Slideshow
Step 1: Place text in correct sections and ensure it is formatted correctly.
Step 2: Crowdsource images from Adobe Stock that align with the book's themes. This Instructional Reading Guide is for the book "Chasing Vermeer," and includes themes of museums, artworks, and puzzles. With that in mind we used a museum setting and gallery wall to fit the activity.
Step 3: Design activity based on Content Writer's description and decide how to display it visually. For this particular activity, the Content Writer specified that they wanted a pentomino puzzle displayed somehow in the activity but how this would be up to our discretion how.
Step 4: Send it to Instructional Designers to ensure the activity is correct and allow them the opportunity to request edits. The Guide is then finalized after this round of editing and sent to Scholastic Publishing for print.
Takeaways
I have been working on these materials for almost a year now and in that time the look of these materials have changed significantly. In this time, I have learned the importance of consistency and accessibility.
Consistency:
Our team receives a lot of materials to be used in various places and to ensure they all share the same brand image we need to make sure the same color palette, language, icons, etc are used.
We are tasked with creating 50 Instructional Reading Guides a month and have to create 6-8 for each grade level. These grade levels share the same activities between languages so we have to ensure they appear the same and reach out to Content Writers and Instructional Designers for updates.
To continue our strive for consistency we created an internal Style Guide to be used amongst everyone who works on the Guides so we know what the standard should be.
Accessibility:
This is now the fourth year of creation for New Worlds Reading and we have improved our design significantly each year.
This year we have made sure to include word counts in all of our template so the Content Writers know how much can be included in each section to maintain appropriate legibility.
New Worlds Reading has hired on a consultant to assist with the design of Braille Instructional Reading Guides to certify that they are accessible to learners with low visibility of different calibers.
Thank you to Marissa and Mireya who have been amazing peers to work along and make New Worlds Reading materials the design they are today.