One of my favorite books is out with a brand new edition - the third edition, in fact. It is an inquiry based science book entitled Science Experiments by the Hundreds. It starts out with an experiment that lets students figure out whether the speed of the flow ketchup is affected by its temperature (personally, I think the speed of ketchup is most affected by how hungry the person waiting for the ketchup is!), and ends with an experiment involving a toy truck and the impact extra weight in the truck has on its ability to go up an incline. I think this book and the other books related to it could easily be used in earlier grades as talented and gifted resources or as part of a curriculum for high ability learners.
The really great thing is that as students are doing the many "investigations," they are also learning the proper way to do an experiment, solving the issues in a systematic way. You don't have to spend a bunch of money on special equipment, most of the objects and supplies are commonly found at home or in the classroom. Best of all, the kids are learning through inquiry based science without even being aware that they're learning. How can you beat that! Check it out when you have a chance!
In my last post, I talked about the cover design process that school textbook publishers, like Kendall Hunt Publishing, use on products. Additionally, whether it is books for gifted students, high school science textbooks, or textbooks for elementary school, the interior of the book must be designed. We submit to a designer a portion of the manuscript that contains the majority of the elements we want to incorporate: unit/chapter opener, different levels of headings, art/photos, tables, listings, and so on. We give the designer some instruction on the grade level and type of theme we want to achieve. The or subject is important as the cover of a high school physics textbook would obviously differ in many ways from a high school biology textbook. If the cover is in advanced stages, we may also submit that as a reference. Again, we begin with a few different choices and narrow it down. It's important to create a design that enhances the pedagogy and readability. Additionally, in the case of, high school science textbooks, we want to draw the student in, but don't want to overwhelm or confuse them. The designer usually submits about eight two-page spreads. In addition, they submit a general color palette for the project. We sometimes go through several proofs, making additional suggestions to get to the point that we are satisfied with the design.
Again, the design phase happens at the same time as the copy-editing and art package preparation phases. Hopefully, they all come together around the same time so that we can proceed with composition, which I write about the next time...
When looking for talented and gifted resources, it is important to meet the needs of all of your TAG math students. The following article by
M. Katherine Gavin, Ph.D. from Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, Univeristy of CT,
really embraces the issues to consider regarding books for gifted learners. http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/projectm3/meeting%20the%20needs.html
It’s almost time for our new Kendall Hunt PreK-8 and 9-12 catalogs! I was just looking at the proofs, and they look great. I always love this time of year, new catalogs portend a new school year, new books, and new supplies. This year’s catalogs are full of books for gifted students, elementary school science textbooks, high school science textbooks, math programs, health & fitness curricula, teacher edition textbooks, kits, games, technology, and much, much more. Once the catalogs are complete and up on our website, I’ll provide a link for you to go to and download them. Watch this space!!
Kendall Hunt Publishing Company (KH) is an educational publishing company with three divisions: Pre-K-12, higher education and Kendall Hunt Professional.
I work in the Pre-K-12 Division. We produce programs for pre-kindergarten as well as textbooks for elementary school, middle school and high school. We work in various disciplines, but concentrate mainly on mathematics, science, gifted education books and custom publishing. We also develop various ancillary materials to go with our textbooks to create solution-based programs.
For this series of discussions, I'll concentrate specifically on the development of a high school science textbook.
Acquisition and Publishing Plan
The initial step for the education textbook publisher is the acquisition of a new product. This would include discussions between the author or curriculum developer and the publishing acquisition editor to determine whether or not it is feasible to go forward with new product. This would include discussions on the physical specifications of the book (size, number of colors, number of pages, etc.) and number of ancillary components (teacher edition textbook, test generator, website, and so on). At KH, the acquisitions editor would work with a project manager to determine a budget. We would also work with marketing and sales personnel to develop a publishing plan. The publishing plan may include review stages and/or field testing. The project manager would also create a schedule for the program.
Step 1a: Development of the Manuscript and Art Package
Once a contract is signed for a project, we begin with manuscript development. The project manager works with the author to ensure the manuscript and art package is being prepared properly. We may have the author work within a template in Word or just directly in Word or a similar word processing program. The art package needs to be kept separate from the Word document. One mistake new authors sometimes make is that they try to make their manuscript "pretty." That's our job! We want our authors to concentrate on the writing and we'll concentrate on the publishing.
The high school science textbook is usually submitted by batches of chapters. The chapters are then run through a safety check to be sure the experiments are safe and to add any cautions or warnings that may be needed. They would also develop a materials list for the kit component of the program.
We would also have the manuscript copy-edited. A copy-editor reads the manuscript and checks grammar, spelling and sentence structure. They may also cross reference the student and teacher editions and any other ancillary components to be sure everything makes sense. They will also watch for consistency in the writing style and may be asked to adjust the sentence structures to lower a a certain reading level, if needed. The terms within the content will also play a role in the reading levels. We would have authors review and approve the copy-edits.
At the same time the manuscript is being developed, we work with designers to create the cover and interior designs. I'll discuss that more in my next submission.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, there was no such thing as talented and gifted resources, gifted education books, or, for that matter, talented and gifted education. We had accelerated courses, but those were more about working a grade level ahead, using a high school biology book in 8th grade, or using middle school books in 5th grade, rather than the textbooks for elementary school.
What type of accelerated learning resources is your school using? Do you have a budget for books for gifted students? At my son’s school, the gifted teacher does a wonderful job of creating projects for the children using ideas of her own because she doesn’t have a budget. But I think about how much easier her job would be and how much more robust the program could be if she had a budget to purchase a curriculum for high ability learners.
Have you checked out our gifted and accelerated learning resources lately? Whether it's elementary education books for gifted students or high school science textbooks for accelerated learners, we have something that will meet your needs. One of our partners is the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William & Mary with whom we publish a curriculum for high ability learners that spans the subjects of Language Arts, Science and Social Studies and grades 1-11. Additionally, the program offers teacher resources and lesson plans for gifted and talented. You can find the program 
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