At MaryRuth Books, we love reading! We know that childhood literacy and becoming a successful reader supports a positive self-image. Early literacy helps a child achieve success in school and later, in adult life. For more information, click FAQs.

Why Titles from MaryRuth Books Work for Teaching Reading

Helping reluctant and struggling readers learn to read successfully is more complicated than writing a story with engaging characters. Our books work for young readers because they address the fundamentals of reading with special attention given to:

  • font selection
  • letter spacing, word placement, and line length
  • word repetition and anchor phrases
  • predictable patterns
  • the use of natural language
  • pictures that support the text
  • building upon known letter sounds and words
Early readers continually progress with MaryRuth Books because the books provide the right balance of support and challenge. With adequate support, children are able to read with a natural speaking rhythm. Introducing new words strategically allows them to advance at a comfortable pace. We know what educators know: it takes more than a cute story and pretty pictures to teach children to become fluent readers. (Although our books shine in those areas, too.) The proof is in classrooms and early literacy programs all across the country.

Shop Our Books and Collections

Selecting books that allow students to be successful is the first step in reading instruction. Our titles feature appealing characters, beautiful illustrations, original photography, and engaging stories with decodable words. Decodable words allow young readers to be able to be read using prior knowledge of letter sounds and frequently used words. Through a process of matching a letter, or a combination of letters, to their known sounds students are able to correctly pronounce words.

Whether you’re looking for titles for guided reading, small group intervention (RTI), or books with comprehension quizzes developed by Accelerated Reader™, you’ll find “just right” books, both fiction and nonfiction, in our collection. Each of our books has a coordinating lesson plan and running record available as FREE downloads on the individual title pages. Have questions or suggestions? Please check out our FAQs or contact us. We love talking to fellow bibliophiles!

To help organize your shopping, print out a current MaryRuth Books list of titles and pricing to use as a Shopping List.

Sample our books.

MaryRuth Books Lists

Our books have been independently evaluated and leveled by the major literacy education organizations: Fountas & Pinnell, the Reading Recovery® Council of North America, Accelerated Reader™ (AR), Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and Lexile® Framework for Reading. You will find the majority of our titles included on the Reading Recovery® Approved Book List.  Additionally, we offer over 100 books with corresponding ATOS quizzes (from Accelerated Reader™.)  The quizzes enable educators to evaluate a student’s understanding of  what they’re reading.