Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, and
welcome to The Writing Glitch.
I'm Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach.
Several months ago, I was
approached by some gentlemen
in France about participating
in a thing called Podcastathon.
Their website is podcastathon.
org, and I'm going to share a
little bit about their vision.
Podcastathon.
They say that the strength of a podcast
episode lies in listening, quality
and duration, giving a microphone so
that many associations with such high
level engagement allows them to share
their stories, their challenges and
their projects, conveying emotions
to bring associations closer to
the future donors and volunteers.
Their mission is to have . 1, 500
podcasts from around the world
sharing charitable organizations.
I met a lady by the name of Marian
Waldman around the same time as I was
meeting these folks about Podcastathon.
I was very humbled by what she is doing.
She is a charitable organization that
is going into libraries and schools
around the country and helping them
understand dyslexia, dysgraphia,
dyscalculia, and why some of these
conditions are, the librarians are
struggling with these conditions.
They're actually going in, they have
training for librarians to explain how
to set up dyslexia places in the library.
What are some of the advantages
and disadvantages of The
locations what can we do?
Because a lot of comorbidities happen
with dyslexia and that is ADHD.
How can we set up a station
for kids to participate who
may have conditions like ADHD?
I want to introduce her today.
Now, I did not plan on the podcast.
Oh man, am I struggling
with this one today.
I started the podcast like
I start every podcast.
You're going to get to hear my greeting
again, but I hope that this charity
brings you a bit closer to what is
out there to help kids understand.
Dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia.
They have programs for teachers,
they have programs for libraries,
they have programs for parents,
they have programs for therapists.
Stay tuned and listen to
what they have to offer.
Thanks a bunch.
Oh yeah, I almost, I always forget this.
Make sure that you subscribe to
the podcast and don't forget to
leave a comment and tell us if
you like Teach Your Child to Read.
Speaker: Hey, welcome everybody
to the Writing Glitch Podcast.
I'm Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach.
Today, we are visiting with Marion
Waldman from Teach My Kid to Read.
Teach My Kid to Read is a 503c
nonprofit, and their mission is to
provide parent, librarian, educators,
and anyone else interested in literacy
education with the tools and the
resources to help all kids to read.
Before we go to talk with her a
little bit, We're going to have a word
from our sponsor, Disability Labs.
Disability Labs is a, we, at
Disability Labs, we are committed
to impact the journey of 200,
000 teachers by 2030, so they can
reignite their passion for learning.
Our professional development 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 mathematics
and writing skills, and we are launching
in this new year a subscription box.
Inside that subscription box, you will
find tools for reading, writing, and math
skills for students that are struggling.
Plus, you'll have some surprises for
you, the teacher or the parent or the
therapist who is working with the student.
We did a Pre launch here in October
for the holidays and the people that
purchased it were overwhelmed with glee
because they said it was just layer
upon layer of fun things to do with my
students and some nice surprises for me.
When we launch, you'll
get more information.
As we get closer to launching the
subscription box, but look for it sometime
next year in 2025, I'll have to edit
the next year out, look for it in 2025.
Let's get on with the show, Marion,
thank you for being here today.
Tell us a little bit about yourself
and how you started this nonprofit.
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm
thrilled to be here and very
excited about your work as well.
My background is in educational publishing
and I came to the literacy world when
my own daughter struggled to read.
Having a background in Educational
publishing being an English major
even teaching occasionally in higher
education, I felt that literacy and
reading was something I had my arms
around and that surrounding my daughter
with books and reading to her and telling
everybody when they asked if, They
want gifts to get her give her books.
She can never have too many books.
I thought that I was just super
equipped to help any child read.
I, when I went on a
journey that many parents.
Go on.
And that at first I thought, okay,
she needed a little bit of help.
English wasn't her first language.
I thought maybe that was it.
If we kept up the first language,
it would make it easier.
And then, as time went on, and I
started having more Discussions with
the teachers and administrators.
I knew something wasn't quite right.
She wasn't progressing working with.
I work very closely with content and
curricula in educational publishing
and the work that she was doing
to keep up with her classmates
and supposedly learn to read.
May as well have been in
another language for her.
She wasn't learning the sounds
and the basic skills yet.
She was supposed to answer
questions and read sentences.
Homework became a nightmare.
And then I started on my journey
starting to learn a little bit
about how kids learn to read.
And, again, coming from publishing, I Had
worked on a ton of higher education and
vocational and in K to 12 books, and I was
familiar with that familiar with balance
literacy, and I thought that was the
right way to learn to read in that level.
Texts were all that there was.
It was quite an eye opener to realize
that I had worked on projects that I
then learned were not quite the best way
for nearly any kids, let alone kids that
have a disability reading disability or
reading issue like dyslexia learn to read.
Again, like many parents, I got to the
point where I knew as much as many of
her teachers about what she needed.
And I found a tutoring center in our
region that was that used alphabetic
phonics, one of the, one of the
systematic explicit reading programs
based on the science of reading.
It's not used that commonly,
but it's an effective program.
And that's where she started to progress,
but, she had still fallen way behind
and by the time she was going into
6th grade, I had been, it had been a
long journey and I threw my hands up.
She was just falling so far.
Behind and I ended up driving to the
Kildonan school to Camp Donaback and
sitting down with the director of the
camp and just saying, can you teach
my, can you teach my kid to read?
And I was, I and.
That was, it was before she was going into
6th grade and that was like the a turning
point in my entire career because I had
been in publishing for so many decades.
Then I was a vendor.
I was a partner in a small business and
I never envisioned leaving publishing.
It's all my contacts were it's what
I had Focus my career on all the way
from marketing to editorial to sales
and, working for the big publishers
and myself and suddenly suddenly it
was the summer before my daughter was
going into sixth grade and we were
renting literally a cabin in the middle
of nowhere and she was spending six
weeks going to a camp for specialized
for kids with reading disabilities.
And I met parents from all over.
The country, mostly from the region,
but certainly from the country.
Everybody was pretty much in a daze.
My kid can't learn to read
and they would do anything.
We received a scholarship.
It still was 10, 000 for 6
weeks and I couldn't believe it.
And I felt and there were many
people there that had so much.
That had the means to even buy a second
home while their kid went to camp there.
These were not kids.
I, we live in Albany and, this
was not our community going to
help the kids learning to read.
Just the inequities of this
entire situation, absolutely.
Blew me, blew me away.
The fact that, I was at the time in
my fifties rooming with other parents
the same age, living in the middle of
nowhere, my dog with me or just leaving my
family just so my kid can learn to read.
And in six weeks, she went up three grade
levels into coding and granted, that
was just the beginning of the journey.
But I thought this is yeah.
This, and that was based
on Orton Gillingham.
There was a period of time where I
thought that Orton Gillingham was the
only way my daughter could have learned
to read and I've since realized I'm a
big fan of vote of OG, but I've since
realized that, there are there were other
ways that she other systematic explicit
reading programs that could have had the
same effect with that intensive tutoring
the right teacher being able to understand
what her and Weaknesses are, but that
summer was a turning point for me.
And because I couldn't keep up with the
work in my own business I started blogging
and writing about our experiences.
And that's how teach
my kid to read started.
I had a good friend from college
come up to spend some time with me.
She was a brand, she's a brand manager.
And she's the one who together we came up
with teach my kid to read for the blog.
Because at the point at that
time, that was what it was.
What it was all about and again,
being in publishing, I was brought,
I was brought up that if there's
something wrong in the educational
system, you don't talk about it.
You don't blog about it.
You recommend some solutions.
I was far enough.
Along in my career that I had
that ingrained in my blood that
I better figure out a way that
we contribute to the solution.
Fast forward fast forward teach my kid
to read decides to do a pilot with me.
Libraries, and that partially came
came about because one of my colleagues
at the time had written to, I think
it was a library in New Zealand,
and said, why are the decodables
in just the dyslexia section?
All kids learn to read with decodables.
And I said, over the years, one thing
that has always, it's always been a
Erked me is I'm a constant reader.
I can't imagine life without my Libby
app and constant, just the constant
books I have on backorder and the fact
that anybody could access a library.
Yet when I've gone there,
none of the librarians seem to
know anything about dyslexia.
Once I learned about decodable
books or ways to help Families
like mine at the time.
In 2019, we decided let's do a pilot.
Let's do it.
Focus on 50 libraries in New York, and
let's we partnered with Glean Education
let's give them access to Glean's online
course on dyslexia, give them some
handouts, a poster a suggested list,
we got samples, t shirts, and see if
they're willing to do a discussion.
It was a great success.
Other states heard about it.
We ended up working with 50 libraries
in New York and a bunch of other states.
We had planned to expand our work into
to serve New York, but then COVID hit.
We slapped everything we did
online in a very, rudimentary
kind of wordpress plug in.
And suddenly we were hearing
from libraries all over the
country, even other countries.
And that's how that's how we
got into the library space.
And in the course of this time, I happened
to meet somebody who, a parent who had
nearly a This a parallel experience to
me but she was a librarian and so she
had created a literacy hub at her library
in in the Finger Lakes in New York.
She had a vast decodable book
collection and parent resources,
teacher resources, and we came together.
She's our current program director and
she now works with us full time and also
at the Lodi Whittier Library manages.
The literacy hub there as well.
We began, so we joined forces
and what our work became.
And I should stop here.
Do you want me to keep going or do
you want to answer some keep going?
Okay.
We joined forces and what we started
offering as we offered webinars to
librarians on librarians, library systems.
Sometimes at the state level, system
level, but in three main areas
understanding the science of reading
and how it relates to librarians to
understanding all the early resources
and decodable books so that they could
choose wisely and understand the different
Where the different resources fit and
the third area is initiating literacy
solutions at the library, whether it's
a literacy event with a successful
event that they already have, that
maybe they want to add a story walk or.
Have some resources for parents of
early and struggling readers, even
offer a tutoring program offer kits
take home kits, all the that, a broad
array of literacy solutions that
are taking place at the library.
So those are the three areas that
we focused on, and I'll backtrack
to that to support this work.
We also have a literacy we have
a library committee and we have a
decodable book partnership so that we
can offer librarians and subsequently
the parents and caregivers that they
reach goods deep information on the un
decodable books and even through our
membership program that we'll get to.
Discounts and ways to make it easier
to sometimes purchase these books.
Those were the three the three main
areas that we provide education in.
And then we also provide operational
support where we get brought into
grants often where a pub, usually a
public or a school library that, they
want to start offering decodable books,
a literacy hub for their community.
Can you come in and help provide the
education component, whether it's bridging
a school library with what is happening
in the school, whether it's a public.
library that we're also offering
tools to help the librarians
then serve the community.
We provide that education piece
as well as what to order how to
order, even how to set up the books.
You see there's some bins behind
me and as well as resources for
parents, for teachers, because when
we do community literacy initiatives,
we want to serve the community.
We're going to spend a percentage
of our budget on, what other books
are, do you feel would serve your
community that maybe you don't have?
It could be books in other languages,
different family structures, cultures,
whatever they think would be would
help their community have access
to books where they can mirror,
where they could see themselves.
That's how we, that, that became
that's our work in a nutshell, but.
We had we had one big conundrum with our
work and one quote unquote head scratcher.
And that's that we couldn't
serve the individual libraries.
And we might get brought
into a a a grant in an.
Urban area, even a certain district,
a region, some of the smaller
states, they could even be statewide.
We were still getting calls from
individual libraries and it frustrated
us because we couldn't help them.
We didn't have a model to help them.
And and it was always the same
questions we got, like, how does
the science of reading affect us?
Are we the only library that can
that their patrons are asking all
about these decodable books and
we're trying to learn about them
and hey, sometimes the bindings.
What do we do about the
bindings that aren't durable?
Do we get these books?
How do we know which book to choose?
How do we, where do we put them?
Where do we put the decodable
books for older struggling readers
or that was in the why a section
or the, the Children's section.
We would have all these conversations
and we would just pro bono.
We were constantly doing these
30 minute consults and again,
just connecting everyone.
And we got to a point where we're like,
we have to have a robust community.
The only way we're going to create impact
or truly have any effect on bridging
the literacy crisis with libraries and
communities, which is what our mission
is if we have a community and we connect.
We're now we do have a, we do have an
online community that we just launched.
We have a pilot program We have a
pilot group in there and a couple of
members, but we're, in the process
still of finishing it up and fine tuning
it and working with the community we
have so that we're certain, that it's
serving librarians and library staff
as well as parents and caregivers.
Where we are right now is we've got
this online community and we're very
excited about working with different
library systems working at a state
level and just getting librarians in
there so that they can meet each other.
I think at this point, the best thing is
for me probably to show you the community.
Speaker: Beautiful.
How the membership community,
how long, how much does it cost?
What is the background?
What do you need to do to become
a member of your community?
Speaker 2: If you go to our website,
teach my kid to read dot org right
from the home page, you'll be able
to get to the community page, which
is the landing page for the community.
And the way it works is for a
single librarian to subscribe.
It's 124 95 for the whole year,
which is, I think quite a good deal.
And once a library, once a librarian
subscribes starting in 2025, we'll
also give them a separate invite that
they can share with their patrons and
their patrons will be able to access
the parent caregiver section for free.
A librarian can, we're early on,
but a librarian can sign up today
and we still have some trickling in.
We also have Special pricing for for five
staff members and above that, we just
recommend that a librarian email us at
info at teach my kids to read dot org and
we'll give them information for system
wide licenses or state licenses, but an
individual librarian can sign up today.
They want to
Speaker: beautiful.
What about a parent?
Speaker 2: Right now our model is
that is that the parents will access
it for free through the library.
. We might have a model after we've been
after we've launched and gotten some
traction with our library community we
may have a model so that parents can
subscribe at a much lesser, Fee without
a library, but right now, we would
like to offer it for free to parents
and caregivers through the library.
Speaker: I'm a parent.
I'm not associated with the library.
I would like to be part of this community.
And one of the things that you
and I were talking about is that
Disability Labs and CheriDotterer.
com and everything, all the work that
I'm doing, I've been wanting to partner
with a non profit and I would love to
partner with your non profit to help.
Help parents be part of
that membership system.
Parents that are out there, OTs that are
out there, teachers that are out there
that are not affiliated with a library.
We are developing a system where
you can donate to build up the.
Individual membership program,
and hopefully we can then launch
that individual program as a
collaborative resource for you.
That's where on my mind is thinking is
if we, as individuals can support you
and create that secondary system, I
would love to be, helping you do that.
Speaker 2: That would be great.
And we are looking for content partners
and partners, for that parent section,
because we initially our plan was to
1st launch the librarian library staff
community, which I'm going to show you,
because I think it's always easier to see.
Then to then to tell and, just
getting that librarian library
community launched and some of the
things we're working on for that has
been, pretty overwhelming for us.
We thought, then the next phase
will be the parent phase, but the
feedback we got from the librarians
is we want right from the get go.
We want the parent.
We want the parent piece.
We want to be able to provide.
For our, we want to be able to
provide resources for our patrons.
We fast tracked it.
It's there now.
It's not . But when I have the
demo, you'll be able to see it.
You'll be able to see what parents
and caregivers have access to.
And the.
Nice thing about community
is it's a community.
And we've had to we've had to dig our
heels in for some of our own initiatives
in the community and say wait a minute
when we get a little bit more of a
mass in here, we might decide to we
might decide that Hey we want to have
we want to have a a book study group
once a week, or we want to have a right
now we're having we have office hours,
we have, science and reading, but.
A lot of a lot of what we do, we want
it to be a community we don't want to
we've provided structure, but we want,
we don't want to get so far in what
we've dictated this community needs
that the community joins and we're going
in this direction and the community
is bubbling along, looking for certain
looking for certain information, certain
support, and we're not listening.
Whether, we've had some feedback
about opening it up for parents
sooner rather than later.
And that's definitely
not out of the question.
There's a ton of flexibility
with how this works.
And I think we're very much in the.
Learning phase with the community.
We have calls almost every day
with our members that are in
there about there's so many topics
that come up like we talk about.
You'll see what you'll see.
There's a lot of what's hard is
there's a lot of breath in there.
And where do we go with the
depth with all of these topics?
We're getting a lot of our urban
libraries are like, we need so much
more support in for the English
language learners that we serve.
We've been busy meeting with,
especially with Spanish, which is
often the top language, but sometimes
there's as many as 48 languages.
But how can we help librarians
with this very complex area?
In the rural areas, there's, it's
the homeschool community and how
can we provide a level of support?
There's so many different
questions we're trying to answer.
And, you can't be, it's you can't
you can't be you can't be broad that
there's nothing you're quite providing
enough depth in, so it's, we're
tiptoeing in, but with the parent
area, can I show you the community?
It might be,
Speaker 3: you should be
Speaker: able to.
Speaker 3: Okay,
Speaker: and
Speaker 3: have
Speaker: you seen
Speaker 3: it
Speaker: before?
I don't believe so.
While you're pulling that up.
The community that's been following
me has heard about this book,
Handwriting Brain Body Disconnect.
It's very ironic that
you're talking about 2019.
That's when I published.
I published because I was trying to
help my gifted student with spelling.
Plus, I was trying to help the students
at school as a direct service provider
help them with spelling as well.
I've come to realize that The thing that
both of those students need, the one
that's struggling to read and write,
the one that knows how to read, but has
trouble getting information on paper,
the biggest thing that there's 2 areas,
1 of them is visual pattern recognition,
understanding the patterns of the
way words and are created and Memory,
working memory is the other area and even
the right gifted students have memory
deficits that relate to the writing.
It's a slower neurological path.
And this was designed for parents, but
most of the people that have purchased
that I know of I think it's expanding, but
initially the people that purchased were
OTs, but I've had so many teachers and
parents call me and ask me more questions.
I'd like, as we're talking here I
feel strong enough in my foundation
to be able to offer a webinar to
your libraries about writing skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that
would be very appealing.
That would be great.
And that's the kind of, these are the
kind of partnerships we're looking for.
And, with writing, you can't , we
can't talk about literacy
without writing and spelling.
And
Speaker: math is in there too.
I'm actually doing a webinar.
I do it once a month on a Thursday night,
happens to be this coming Thursday,
where I teach three different strategies.
That helps support math, but because
of the writing involved I talk a little
bit about how the mathematics and the
writing blend together and create either a
positive or a negative impact on learning.
Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Wow.
That would be, that sounds,
my curiosity is piqued.
Oh, good.
Tell us a little bit about your community.
, here is.
The homepage and this is the this is
where we provide some information for
the librarians and staff, just some
general information about what to do
when you're in the community and same
with the parents and caregivers, we
have a little bit of a message for them.
Now, currently, the librarians have access
to everything where the parents you'll
see, we'll get to their section as well
as and then they have some select areas,
but this is the start here for librarians.
And it's a little bit of a video
talking about the community why
it was formed, who it's for.
The librarians and staff
feel clear about where to go.
We have three recommended
learning paths based on the most
common questions we get asked.
One is what are the other libraries doing?
And then, within it, we have some
suggestions about what to do, where
to go, how to learn about that.
Two, I want to learn more about
the science of reading, which
comes up all the time with us.
And three, I want to
create a literacy hub.
We have a learning path for
where to go for that information.
Then we have announcements and these
go out once a week, every Thursday,
it's more high level High level
information that we're sharing.
This is one of our literacy partners
who the Reading League and the Reading
Institute and they're doing a seminar on
Friday that we shared with our community
and then we have events and these are
open to they will be open to parents
as well right now, since We have all
librarians in here, and it's mostly again,
what we call more ritualistic events.
Let's talk decodable books,
discussions about decodable books,
office hours is like an orientation.
Another book discussion, this one
happens to be books about dyslexia.
And then we've got an upcoming webinar
in the science of reading grant
opportunities are for librarians to
be able to purchase decodable books.
Then we have, this is
the library community.
We call it the road to
decode library community.
We have some prompts, they introduce
themselves and Get to know each other.
This is where the librarians and staff
post ask an expert and you can even
be one of our ask the experts right
now because we're a new community.
All the experts are going almost
through the end of the year.
And it's an opportunity to ask
specific questions to at least as a
literacy specialist, former teacher.
Also with express readers.
This is our library chair, Laura lay.
She works for the Department of
Education in Colorado and she's a a
librarian and a literacy specialist.
She's written some OG based programs
as well, so just a pretty exceptional
program and a person in our own Beth
Bevers who helps librarians about
Where to start, how to create a literacy
hub, how to connect with your school.
That's ask an expert.
Then we have a space for librarians
to post what they're doing.
This is a library in a rural area in
New York that created a collection.
These are sometimes the photos
that we end up sharing and passing
around, so we're excited about our
showcase, community feedback, just
we can continue to improve, and this
is our our beta group of librarians.
Then we have resources
for librarians and staff.
We've got a video library, and this
essential list is for librarians and
parents, and these are robust lists that
we have someone working almost full time.
To to continue to maintain, as you see,
we have a bunch of different categories.
And then within those categories,
we have the ISVN, sometimes
where to get the book, et cetera.
And these lists are, again, for parents
And for librarians, and we have a
whole explanation of what the different
lists are and then before you move
Speaker: on, go back and
see at the bottom there.
You have podcast.
I'm hoping that the writing glitch
and tier 1 interventions could
be part of your podcast list.
Speaker 2: We will add them.
I need the we will absolutely add them.
And that's Beth Bevers who
maintains all these lists.
And we're always looking for good podcasts
and books to add to all these lists.
So whatever you want to
send me, we're happy to add.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
You're
Speaker 2: welcome.
And then library resources.
These are what we provide to librarians
when we work with them and it range ranges
from brochures we provide so they can
offer their community some information
on their decodable book collection,
what it is, handouts for parents,
story walks engagement tools signs.
A wide range of tools
for librarians and staff.
Articles, articles about libraries
and literacy and then data is
literacy data as well as some of our
programming data working with libraries.
Now we're at the parent
caregiver section and.
Speaker: Yes, it's a very
robust, but is this on a circle?
Yes, it's on circle.
It's on circle.
Speaker 2: These are all the spaces.
In our in our parent caregiver
section so far, we have our welcome
say hello ask a parent caregiver so
that parents can actually talk to
each other an early literacy space.
That's whoops.
I don't want to leave the space.
We're going to go right.
Early literacy space, which
Speaker: I have an early literacy program
that I want to share with you as well.
They're out of Canada, however,
they are giving their early
literacy information away for free.
It's.
It's absolutely adorable little
program that a mom of a child with
dyslexia who found out that her husband
also had dyslexia and dysgraphia
and what they're doing with it.
I will share Play Roly with you as well.
And look for that and
look for the listeners.
Look for that episode.
I'm not sure when that will
come out, but that'll come out
sometime this year as well.
Speaker 2: No, I will look for it.
And matter of fact, we have a lot of back
and forth with with I want to say, is it
IDA Canada or Decoding Dyslexia Canada,
but we have a call even Friday with them.
We have some good representation and
we may even have a separate space
just for the Canadian librarians.
They're doing some amazing work.
Even they even guided us
through a grant process for it.
This is early literacy.
Again, we're just starting
to, populate this space.
And you'll see that this is this is new
to Dyslexia and Reading Differences.
And all these spaces, I should say,
too, we are in the process of talking
with content partners so we could
keep offering fresh information.
You would be a perfect partner
for, many of these spaces.
But we also have moderators.
In these spaces, which we don't have it
with the librarian spaces so that parents
who maybe want to ask a 22 year old who
couldn't learn to read until they were
in 7th grade questions about her journey.
She's in here as a moderator.
Our 2nd moderator is an adult.
She's also a publisher.
Who is dyslexic.
We wanted to make sure with some of
our parents sections that we also
in addition to resources that they
have somebody who's experiencing
what you know what maybe their child
is in there to ask questions, too.
As you see, I'm just going to again,
we've got the early literacy, ask a
parent caregiver, homeschool resources,
tutoring and apps and technology.
That's the parent section.
That we're that once the library's
subscribed, that we'll have we'll be
able to provide parents with their own
code in addition to some of, access to
some of the other parts of this space.
Our literacy partners are our non profit
partners who we work with and some
of them are content partners as well.
And then we have our publishing partners
and we have a program for publishers.
It's it's more of a partnership
than a direct sponsorship program.
And they get access to the space.
They get an event.
And many of them, this is where they
also offer incentives or discounts
to members of the community.
And not only are we lining up more
publishers in this in this space,
we're also in discussion with
some of the distributors because
some of the larger library systems
can't order from the publishers.
They have to go through the distributor.
That's a benefit.
And then we have courses.
I'm not going to demo the course
right now because we have some sample
content in there, but we are going
to offer courses in the main areas
that we have Webinars in as well as a
parent course on fundamental reading
skills are featured sponsor volunteer
information, and then we have links.
We have links to our guidelines.
Our website are we have an affiliate
bookshop on books bookshop dot org.
We have a link to we
have our own e commerce.
Our store.
We have free e books of I see Sam,
a map of who we work with and sold a
story kind of, of course, a classic.
Podcast and the reading brain.
Those are our links and I'm going to stop
this share unless you have any questions.
And this is our community.
Speaker: I love it.
I see so many ways that we could be come
partners and in this pandemic of literacy,
it's it's its own pandemic is what I feel
like, but I see that and the connections
that I've made here doing the podcast.
That's, I can see different ways that
we could connect, so we'll have to
continue talking and continue to to
have you come and share more things
over time, but we are out of time.
We need to to end the podcast today.
Is there anything else
that you'd like to add?
Speaker 2: No, except to share our work.
We are we're a newer nonprofit and
we were always looking for donations
and sponsors to help us build more
content create create courses bring in.
Experts and resources as well
as for own capacity to grow.
We are presenting at the World
Literacy Summit on between April
7th and 9th, and that's available.
It takes place in Oxford, but Oxford UK.
It's also going to be be virtual.
We're excited about that
opportunity and, maybe growing our
community to, to other countries.
Speaker: That's wonderful.
That's amazing.
Listeners out there, remember, you
were put here for such a time as this.
Go be awesome.
Go be brilliant.
And Marion, this was an absolute
joy to have you with your wisdom
and everything that you're doing.
It, I can see that your program
is just going to explode over
the next couple of years.
Speaker 2: I hope so.
Thank you for this opportunity
and I'm looking forward to all
of the all of the collaborative
opportunities that we'll have together.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Thanks everybody.
See you next week.
I've only seen, I haven't
seen anybody use it.
.
Speaker 2: We'll, we'll see.
We were going to do also do
our core values and a mission
statement of the group.
But I said, we don't have
enough people to do it now.
It'll be just, the us in our
library chair sitting here.
Let's wait until we have more.
Yeah, it's the engagement piece.
And I tell them all when I
show it, I said, we're going to
provide you with the best content.
Yeah.
We're going to argue with resources,
but if we want this to be a
successful community, you want
your parent your patrons to engage.
We need you in.
We need you in there.
You need we need and what's maddening with
us, though, is that they do contact us.
They continue one on one.
It's just like constantly
posted in the group posted in
the group or ask the group.
We'll see.
I'm glad it's not just us because I
went to a seminar on member engagement
yesterday and I asked a question.
Question.
And I said, we're a new community
and we've implemented a lot of the
recommendations that you just suggested.
And we're still not getting
a lot of engagement.
Is it that
Speaker: it's teachers?
It's that whole community of teachers.
Speaker 2: It's funny, because he
answered I don't know your specific
community, but he said, you might
have something wrong under the hood.
And I said to Beth, who we run, I said.
Did we do something wrong under the hood?
I said, I don't know.
But I asked him, I said, or
is it just time and marketing?
And
Speaker: yeah, I find it getting
anybody to engage is hard.
And that's the same thing that Donnelly
says, would you be interested in setting
up a date for a free webinar on writing?
Speaker 2: I would be, but
wait till we have more members.
And that's what I've been telling
people is I would love to.
I would love to, we could put
something on the calendar, but
I don't want to have right now.
Like you see, I have my
fundamentals of science of reading.
I threw that out there because
our course isn't ready yet.
And just to see, I don't
want you to spend the time.
And we have 3 people because we have 3
Speaker: people.
We have 3 people, but, if you want to
schedule a date for that, we can do that.
I was thinking like, January,
Speaker 2: you do it for
Speaker 3: the end of
Speaker 2: the end of January.
Pick a date.
Speaker: Yeah, want to do that while
we're here while we're thinking about it?
Sure,
Speaker 2: and you know what I haven't
figured out too is we have a lot of events
within the community I would just have
to give you access to the community We
could do it on zoom for the community
that might be easier have them register
Speaker: That's fine.
I like to do my stuff on
thursday nights for my free stuff
the 20 Third is probably the best night
we can
Speaker 3: work.
Speaker: Okay.
7 o'clock
Speaker 3: 7 o'clock.
Did you say?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And can you
could send me a blurb on it?
I will.
Speaker: All right.
I will do that when we get off of here.
Yeah, and I'll do a, you want me to
do more of the writing than the math.
So we can do that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I'll let
Speaker 3: them,
Speaker 2: I'll tell them to invite
their parents and caregivers, their
community too, like if any parents.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Great to have a, be great to have a
full screen, but it's also if it's
three that I'm used to doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true.
We could do it as a Zoom meeting,
but keep the cameras off or we
could do it as a webinar either way.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
The more interactive, the way I am
is the more interactive I can be
with the people on Zoom, the better.
I like To have them do things
that are non writing activities
that help promote writing.
We, we do exercises while we're on zoom.
Speaker 2: I like that, too.
I prefer meetings to webinars as well.
Even when we do our tours, even though
most people still turn their cameras off.
I want to give people the option.
Sometimes also we and we also
get interactive, even in our.
Webinar, especially the early resources
where we're looking at different books.
Read by four at the Philly Free
Library System and our grant
work in Chester for Senator Muth.
It's not quite Chester County, it's
Chester, Montgomery, and Berks.
That got extended to school librarians.
A lot in Pennsylvania.
Our pro bono law firm is based
in Philadelphia, DLA Piper, okay.
And I used to work for Elsevier
in Philadelphia, ah, okay.
Coincidentally, it's always, it
seems like I'm always there and,
but it's been a, we get more work.
We have, it's probably the most
active state for us just because
things always snowball when you
start working closely with an area.
Speaker: Yeah, Pennsylvania
is a unique state.
I've got to give it that.
Yes.
Speaker 2: All right.
You have a nice day, and
I'm glad we connected.
It's good to see you again.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye
Speaker 3: bye now.
