Cheri Dotterer 0:00
Welcome to the writing glitch. I'm Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach. Today we are here with Lisa studry, did I say that? Right? It's sturdy. Sturdy. Give me Lisa sturdy from Play rolly. Lisa is the founder of teaching the way they learn. She was a commercial real estate agent in Vancouver. Her husband, Morgan, is dyslexic, and he is a tech engineer and philanthropist, philanthropist. I can get the words out honestly. I can they now have this product called Play rolly. It is designed to delight and inspire confidence and introduce the joy of reading to every young learner. Play rolly embeds reading intervention techniques, teaching all children as they are at risk of difficulty in any age the way we the way between, okay, I can't read and speak out loud at the same time. Let's try that one more time, teaching all children as they are at risk of difficulty in an age appropriate way between the ages of three to five. While on the surface, play rolly is a fun game for children. The game utilizes decades of research and in areas of education, neuroscience and reading development in children. Before we begin, let's hear a word from our sponsor, disability labs. At disability labs, we are committed to impact the journey of 200,000 teachers by 2030 so they can reignite their passion for teaching. Our professional learning series focuses on math and writing strategies to help all students in your classroom. These interventions improve students with and without disabilities, all students have access to the mathematics and the writing skills. We have an ebook for called the pizza problem, available for 1495 see the show notes for details. The pizza problem introduces the concept of squares to students, whether you are a teacher or an occupational therapist. This math problem uses vision to develop conceptual knowledge from kindergarten through 12th grade by increasing the complexity of the student's knowledge base and improving number sense. Wow. Lisa, tell us how you went from commercial real estate to early reading. Yeah,
Speaker 1 2:34
it does sound like a strange jump. I commercial real estate was my career. I have that business background, that business mind, but when my son, who is dyslexic, had this blessing of early intervention for his dyslexia, he's one of the only dyslexic people I know who got the help he needed at a very young age, I went, This is crazy. We could have other children for whom we could prevent reading difficulty. So we decided to make the prevention, which is really an early intervention. We decided to make it play based. So hopefully I'm using some of my business skill to apply to play rolly. But it really, it does seem like a very big jump, as you say, from commercial real estate to early learning.
Cheri Dotterer 3:38
I knew there had to be a child involved. I just knew it.
Unknown Speaker 3:43
There often is, I suspect, yeah,
Cheri Dotterer 3:46
that's how I got here. There was, it was my career as an occupational therapist. But when I had a gifted child who was struggling with spelling, I went, what is the connection here? Because she wasn't dyslexic, she just had trouble with the writing part. And I'm like, That's my specialty. Why can't I figure this out? So that's how kind of how I got put in this position is, I was trying to close the gap for all those people that were like, What is the difference, and so I'm trying to be an advocate for the difference. And
Speaker 1 4:25
when it works for you, you want to prevent other people, don't you? You want to prevent the grief that you had to experience, save that because it's unnecessary. And you really want to try to prevent the anguish that you experienced. Yeah.
Cheri Dotterer 4:42
But I want to backtrack to something you said, and that was you had a son who got the help he needed at a very young age. And I have a friend who lives in Canada talking about the way that. The services are delivered in the Canadian environment versus we talk about the comparison between the states and Canada. Did your son get services at a young age for dyslexia? I'm really confused.
Speaker 1 5:19
Yeah, that's part of the reason we we offer play, really for free, because we were blessed to have the financial means to he went to private preschool. Preschool in British Columbia, where I live, is private. So if you can afford to send your child to preschool, lucky for them, and in this particular preschool, the one that we walk to, there's a wonderful teacher who's been teaching jolly phonics to preschoolers for decades, and she's actually the face in the playrolly videos. Play rolly is basically built on volunteers from our neighborhood, one of whom is her, and that's how I knew, because my son had reading failure in quotes as a preschooler. So we were very lucky that we could then go to an Orton Gillingham tutor who is what play rolly is born of this blending activity that finally allowed him to blend, and then we decided to make it playful so that we could pass it along to everybody. So early intervention to answer your question is very atypical here in British Columbia because you don't typically get your reading instruction. Tell kindergarten is optional. Here also, so grade one is mandatory, so many children aren't learning to read. Tell grade one where you're six and seven years old, and that Nadine Gabb talks about that dyslexia paradox being meaning the difference between ages four to six, when we really want to have that early intervention happen, and the age you have to fail at reading for a couple of years to get a diagnosis. So you're not really going to get a diagnosis till you're at least eight. So it's a real disconnect here and everywhere.
Cheri Dotterer 7:20
It sure is, you hit the nail on the head. There is a lack of proactivity in the education environment, which is changing here in the United States. I've got to give it that they are working on it. It's not moving fast, but it they are trying to change that.
Speaker 1 7:41
Can I interject something there, just along your lines of your questions, we have had a very positive change in British Columbia in 2024 which is the announcement that kindergarten screening will be happening across the province. So that has translated into big changes for us, because rather than trying to convince people that actually early literacy is a really great idea, as long as you make it playful and engaging for students and focus on those verbal skills that you want to see developing in young kiddos. So we actually, we are piloting our new classroom materials, which is playroll, is a screener for phonemic awareness, and it's also a Dynamic Assessment teaching tool. So we have little books that the little kiddos we just piloted the first time in the fall. We've got other districts piloting or, sorry, in June, we've got districts piloting this fall, and you'll be happy to see that we get them writing right from the start. So that change is brand new. So kindergarten screening is a brand new change for British Columbia, and it's very exciting because the schools are looking for like the we're just getting into our collaboration. So this is very new. We just piloted this for the first time, and in May, June, in anticipation of this change coming. So this is a brand new situation, but the schools are really looking to help those kiddos that flag on the screeners. So they're the pilots in some of these districts are for the kid, for the at risk. Children only, not every child, okay,
Cheri Dotterer 9:30
so this is British Columbia only. You haven't gone across all of Canada. Ontario
Speaker 1 9:35
is really leading the charge. Ontario is our biggest Province, where Toronto is and that they are also not just in kindergarten. They're doing. They've even changed their curriculum towards structured literacy. So some provinces and Alberta has made some great changes. Manitoba, I think, is starting. It is happening just like it is. I think in your state and elsewhere, it's starting to happen. And education in Canada is by province, yes.
Cheri Dotterer 10:09
So I know a little bit more about Ottawa because my friend and I talk frequently, and she has me coming up to Ottawa in May. So for any of you who are from Canada and are interested in some professional development, I will be in Ottawa in May.
Unknown Speaker 10:34
I love Ottawa. It's beautiful. I was supposed
Cheri Dotterer 10:37
to couple weeks ago and I messed up my root to your cuff. Oh, it's doing fine. It's doing fine. I don't have to have surgery. I don't think I think it was just weak muscles back there, but that's totally different topic. So tell me you keep talking about this free tool that you have, free How are you creating a free product that you're offering to people, and how do they get a hold of it?
Speaker 1 11:10
Anyone can use it. It's www.playrolly.com, and there are 26 lessons. They're video lessons. And we have an app now where you can actually sign in, and then you just click on you can play the game on your phone, and then you click on today, and it'll drop that day's lesson. The lessons are a minute and a half each because they're designed for little kiddos as a parent or a grandparent, often you just do it daily, whereas when we pilot in the schools, we usually do we do as many lessons as the child would like to do that day, typically one to three lessons. But some kids will do 12 lessons in one day. They get really into it sometimes. So anyone can use it. It's playrolly.com and you just sign up. It's free. You don't need a credit card, anything. And you get guided through the program. And then when you finish play relief six, which is the last module, then you get a little certificate of completion.
Cheri Dotterer 12:19
Does it look like that?
Speaker 1 12:22
No, that's not it. It's play. It's not under the App Store. So you get the app
Cheri Dotterer 12:27
on a website. That's what I was trying to find out. Yes. Why I did that
Speaker 1 12:31
question? Very good question. If you go on your phone, just on your browser, under playrolly.com, okay, you'll see a place to sign up there. And we're actually just changing the app right now. It's designed for one child and one email address, and the app is being worked on as we speak. You got it? That's it, yeah. So if you that little, if you go up in the corner there, there's a place to sign up. And then once you sign up,
Cheri Dotterer 13:06
yes, third one from the bottom, very,
Speaker 1 13:09
okay, great. And then once you have
Cheri Dotterer 13:12
any little ones that need this today, however, I have a very good friend who has little ones who could benefit from this. Oh, the
Speaker 1 13:21
kids love play rolly. It's very sweet. It is learning a new language, which is a language of phonemes. So one thing with Rolly, if you can play it consistently, like every day, every second day, once a week, something like that, so that, because the child is really learning a new language. So, like any language, regular play is good, but the program finishes. Some kids finish the program in three days. My My granddaughter, who we are a family of Dyslexics, and she was only two when I did it with her, but she finished it in several it took her months to finish it, but it it doesn't, it's just playing. It doesn't really feel like it literally is playing with your with your young child. But the new app will be for teachers. When you sign in with a new app, you'll have a teacher dashboard with all your list of students, and that track will track each student's number of blends, because what you're learning when play roley is how to blend letter sounds into words, so blending Matt into matte, okay, initially verbally and then later with letters
Cheri Dotterer 14:37
versus B, L together to make that a blend, you've taking individual sounds and putting it
Speaker 1 14:45
together, and you're pronouncing them in a specific way. So they're because kids that are at risk, they don't hear those phonemes. So rather than saying, which is very short, it's a stop sound. And you're saying
Speaker 1 15:08
so the child can have time to process, even if they're an at risk kid.
Cheri Dotterer 15:14
Love it. This is I'm so glad that I was able to connect with Audrey to have this conversation. I'm going to be sharing this with my friend. So pastor's wife, she has twins that are two and a half, and she suspects one of them is on the spectrum, so this will help him tremendously.
Speaker 1 15:37
Wonderful. That's great. Yeah, one thing we are learning about play rolly as we go. Kids love it like my granddaughter loved it at two and a half, and phonological awareness develops like from two and a half on. It is more efficient because the mother of twins is going to be very busy. It is more efficient to play roley at the end of preschool, like when they're four, before they just before they go to school, because they will forget how, just like any language you learn, a little Italian, if you go away, you'll forget. So we are doing play rolly in at the end of preschool, or during preschool or at the very start of kindergarten, is when we're suggesting it
Cheri Dotterer 16:29
okay? I will let her know that now, Canada is a French speaking country. Do you also have a French version of play rolly?
Speaker 1 16:40
It's a good question, and we've been asked that a lot, and the answer is, Not yet. Okay,
Cheri Dotterer 16:46
not yet. It's coming. That means, well, coming.
Speaker 1 16:51
It's actually not even being worked on. We have my board member and I our next project is a second one of these books for a little bit more complex words. We do CBC words in this book, and as some of the other obstacles are those digraphs or long vowels or we want to work on some of those other barriers that we know our kids are going to stumble with. So that's the next project after this.
Cheri Dotterer 17:20
Understood. Understood. Now your book has writing in it. We're talking about three to five year olds other than the book. Is there any emphasis on writing within the the game that you're playing?
Speaker 1 17:39
So it was quite interesting piloting this program in May, June, because we were really only going with the older kids in the preschool, the ones that were going to kindergarten, but the the everybody wants to play roley. So we ended up having to let some of the younger kids to it, because they wouldn't leave the seat, unless you played with rolly with them. I know so all of the children that we tested, so there was 14 in the pilot, 12 older kids, two younger kids, all of the kids attempted mark making of some kind, because it's in the program. So in play, really, for you do the ABCs, you touch the letters with you with the ball, and you're asked to print your name starting with the first letter, and you show them how to do it. And then in the last two modules, you're asked to print out the phonemes. And so this is with tracing lines. So this is not penmanship, this is not letter formation. It's really phonemic awareness, and it it's easier for some of the kids to blend when they do that. One of the younger two children hardly wrote. The three year old, he hardly wrote in his book at all. He didn't speak very well either. He mostly pointed to the pictures to tell you what the rolly word was, all of the older kids attempted, but there was a massive variation as to the ability of those children. We're really just doing phonemic awareness, but it's quite useful for the teacher to observe the variation in the ability to write their name, for example. And when I that, every time I meet with you, my board member, Dr Siegel and then other educators, when we meet and show them the pilot results, they all zero in on the writing. It's really interesting. So
Cheri Dotterer 19:36
yeah, that's because the writing is the product of everything that you're doing, yeah, and that's why writing gets clumped together, because it's the product. It's the motor skill,
Unknown Speaker 19:51
right? Yes,
Cheri Dotterer 19:55
we don't see like throwing the ball as the motor skill, but that is the motor skill, right? Which I believe I saw as part of some of the video that you have there, you have a ball, and you're talking about the phonemes while you're speaking and playing with the ball. I could be wrong. Oh, that's right, that's
Speaker 1 20:15
rolio pulley. Any ball with a face is Rolly, and that's one of the things kids love to do is they pass the ball in different ways. Their little imaginations are always one child will figure out how to do break dancing Rolly, and he'll give him a spin, and another child will push him with a ruler there. They always figure out different ways of really getting passed back and forth that because they're kids, yeah? Oh, they do. One of the little boys did it under the table. It was just, they're so funny, aren't they, those little ones? Yeah, yeah, my granddaughter and I used to do it on our bellies too. It's great.
Cheri Dotterer 21:01
All right, you're saying granddaughter, but originally you said son, and we also know that your husband is dyslexic. You said a family. How? How does your son? How is he transcended from the time that you discovered him in preschool to now, if you, if indeed that is his child,
Speaker 1 21:24
no. So we have a Modern Family. So my husband's very tragically lost his wife to cancer. Okay, so we have an adult child with two little grand babies who we see all the time, who are one and three, and then we have a 14 year old child. So our 14 year old is he knows he's dyslexic, but he's never had an IEP at school, whereas his father, he prayed every year that he would he ended up being the top of his class at university, but boy, oh, boy, it was not easy for him. Yeah, my son has had very different experience than not just my husband but many other family members. Whereas my granddaughter, we will have no idea if she's dyslexic, I hope, because we are going to teach her in a way she can learn. She can blend already, so hopefully it works out okay for her.
Cheri Dotterer 22:27
So for all these preschools that may listen to this podcast, check out play rolly for your structure, literacy, curriculum exactly,
Unknown Speaker 22:38
or start of kindergarten as well.
Cheri Dotterer 22:44
So again, how do people find the play rolly?
Speaker 1 22:48
So just on your browser, www.playrolly.com, and there is a place to find up. And when you sign up, you'll have, if you're a teacher, you'll have a teacher dashboard. And if you're a parent, you'll just have your own child there. And there will be a place you can just email us, rolly at play, rolly.com if you're interested in getting our classroom materials, which are a student workbook, and there's a teacher guidebook with a little script and instructions. And we, I don't know if you've got a little readers while you were at Ida or not. We have these little decodable, okay, we have these cute little decodable books that we will be building into the Student Workbook for people to use. Lovely. Oh, yeah. You can contact us on the site if you're interested in getting materials for your district.
Cheri Dotterer 23:45
This has been fantastic. I commend you for having a free program that anyone out there with preschool children can use. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for thank you
Speaker 1 23:59
what, you're doing for writing and all of your educational consulting. We need lots of people, all of us out there, doing our tiny bit.
Cheri Dotterer 24:08
Thank you. And for my listeners, remember you were put here for such a time as this. Go be awesome. Go be brilliant. Teach those struggling students with the strategies that you learn here. Thank you for listening again this week.
Unknown Speaker 24:25
Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
