LinguaReaders
Built by a classroom teacher who couldn't find the right readers — so she wrote them.
Christina Shala is the founder of LinguaReaders and President of Education by Shala Books Inc. She holds a B.Ed in French Immersion Education from the University of Alberta and brings over 20 years of experience teaching in both Canadian and international schools.
Christina began her career teaching FSL and French Immersion in Canadian schools before taking on a language coordinator role at an international school in Jakarta — an experience that shaped how she thought about curriculum design, teacher support, and what it actually means to build something useful for a classroom.
Throughout her teaching career, she noticed the same gap everywhere she went: there simply weren't enough level-appropriate, engaging graded readers for FSL and ESL students in middle and high school. The stories that existed were either too simple, too adult, or completely disconnected from what students were actually learning in class. So she wrote her own.
The Marc et Julie (FSL) and Jason & Janet (ESL) series were written directly from Christina's classroom experience — built around the same vocabulary targets, grammar structures, and real-world themes she was already teaching.
Every reader reflects a unit a real language teacher might actually be covering. Every character feels like someone a student might actually know.
What started as supplementary reading materials grew into something bigger. The Lingua Literature Circles program was developed alongside the readers to give teachers a structured, ready-to-use discussion framework — one that gives every student a real opportunity to speak in the target language, not just read it.
LinguaReaders now offers 74 graded readers across FSL and ESL — 37 per series, at three levels — each with audio flipbooks, vocabulary and grammar worksheets, lesson plans, and the complete Literature Circles discussion program.
Students learn a language best when the content is meaningful, the level is right, and they have real opportunities to use what they know.
LinguaReaders exists to give every FSL and ESL teacher exactly that — without adding work to their plate.
Christina now lives in Osoyoos, B.C., where she continues to write, consult, and build resources for language educators. LinguaReaders is one of several platforms under the Education by Shala Books umbrella — all built around the same core idea: that empowered educators make the greatest impact on student learning.
LinguaReaders is a product of Education by Shala Books Inc. — a British Columbia-based company dedicated to building meaningful, practical tools for educators at every level.
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