Melanie Morgan was raised in San Antonio, Texas and vows to be a Texan for the rest of her life!

In her senior year of High School, Melanie worked as an assistant to a 2nd grade teacher several days a week. This experience led her to realize that she wanted to become a teacher!

Melanie attended the University of Texas at Austin (Go Longhorns!) where she earned a degree in Applied Learning and Development and completed her Texas Teachers Certification in Elementary Education. She went on to teach 1st grade for 8 years and discovered her LOVE for teaching young students to read. This was also when Melanie found herself dreaming of writing her own books that would help her to teach her students.

Melanie’s first series of books are written for 1st graders who are reading on levels 12-16. The average 1st grader reads on these levels usually during the second semester of 1st grade around the months of March and April. These books are written with words that have more syllables and more complicated phonograms. Comprehension and Fluency are important factors at this stage of reading and Melanie’s books are intended to help students practice and improve in these skills.

Melanie’s second series of books are beginning chapter books for 1st and 2nd graders. The books chronicle the adventures of a sibling group of 5 children. Many of the stories are based on true events from Melanie’s younger years. The font is larger print and there are more spaces between sentences to help the reader track as they read.

Melanie also wants to be sure that these books are fun to read and work well as Read Alouds for families and teachers where great conversations about problem solving and making good choices can happen.

Melanie’s favorite thing to tell her students and their families about learning to read is the following:

“In Kinder and 1st grade, students LEARN to read because, in all the grades to follow, students will READ to learn.”