TeachTown Decodable Readers
Illustrating stories students can read and follow.
I illustrated more than ten Decodable Readers for TeachTown's enCORE Elementary curriculum.
Decodable readers are intentionally written so students can practice phonics patterns and word-reading skills they've already been taught. That means the words are doing very specific instructional work.
The illustrations need to help without doing that work for them.
My job was to turn each manuscript and scene description into a world students would want to look at, while keeping the visual storytelling clear enough to support comprehension and focused enough not to compete with the text.
From manuscript to scene.
Each book came with text and descriptions of what needed to happen on the page.
I started with sketches to work out the action, composition, character placement, and visual focus before moving into final illustration.
If the text says the nest needs more heft, you should be able to see why. If a character finds something useful, your eye should know where to go.
Enough to understand. Not so much that the picture takes over.
The illustrations needed to be engaging without competing with the words.
For every page, I thought about what students needed to notice, what visual information would help them understand the moment, and what could be left out.
That balance is part illustration and part learning design. The picture has a job to do, but the student still needs to read.
