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Reading Inspires is Reading Is Fundamental’s new podcast celebrating the power of books and the joy of reading. Each episode invites educators, librarians, families, authors, illustrators, and all who champion children’s literacy to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you? Through engaging conversations and storytelling, Reading Inspires bridges the gap between research and real-world practice—showing what literacy looks and feels like in classrooms, libraries, and homes. Grounded in evidence yet open-ended in approach, this is a space for curiosity and connection. Whether you’re an educator seeking fresh ideas, a parent hoping to spark a love of reading, or simply a lifelong bookworm, you’ll find inspiration, practical insights, and stories that remind us all why reading matters—and how it changes lives.
Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.
I'm your host, Dr. Erin Bailey.
This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.
In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you?
Through stories, research, and real-world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes, we explore what literacy looks like and why it matters.
Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here.
Be sure to subscribe to get the latest episode.
Let's get inspired.
Erin Bailey: Welcome.
Today, I'm joined by Spencer Russell, the founder of Toddlers Can Read.
Spencer and I have known each other for a little while.
We've collaborated on different things, but currently, we've been collaborating on bringing family tip videos to Reading is Fundamental's e-book platform, Skybrary.
So welcome, Spencer.
Glad to have you.
Spencer Russell: Thank you.
Great to be here
Erin Bailey: Um, let's start off with your story, especially for those who are still getting to know you.
You've often shared that, um, you were a struggling reader in your own classroom before you became a teacher, and then a literacy advocate, and then founder of Toddlers Can Read.
Can you tell us about your journey and how your experiences shaped who you are today?
Spencer Russell: Of course.
I started off as a kid who really struggled with reading and didn't like reading.
I remember oftentimes in, in first grade, which was my first official year of school, we'd get spelling tests and spelling homework, and I would just cry.
I just looked at the paper.
It was too hard.
It was too challenging.
And I remember just sitting on the steps and crying and having my mom come over and try and tell me it was gonna be okay And I think a lot of parents are in this boat now.
I have a lot of people who reach out to me whose kids are struggling, and they do their best to encourage the kid and to, to tell them that it's gonna be okay and that they can do it.
But ultimately, when you're a kid who struggles, the best way to get out of that situation is to actually improve your reading ability, improve your spelling ability.
There is no amount of pep talk that's gonna cover up the fact that you don't have the skill that you need to continue.
So I, I, I, I struggled with reading growing up.
Ultimately, I went to a really good high school.
I went to a really good college, I think in large part because of my family and the support that they gave me, and after that became a teacher where I helped a lot of other kids who also struggled with reading.
Working in a low-income area where a lot of our kids have been historically underserved, it was something where the kids would come into kindergarten, the year that many people think, like, reading starts, but they're
already several levels behind in their literacy, from not knowing letter names or basic letter sounds to even concepts of print, where to start on the page or, or how pages turn and, and, and those sorts of things.
We really had to start at the beginning with a lot of the kids, and a lot of that work is the reason why I've started and why I do my work with how they're gonna read today.
I, I've realized that parents are the missing key in a lot of cases to kids being able to read.
Eventually, in my teaching career, I was able to loop parents in through home visits, through parent workshops at the school, invite them into the process, trying to
educate them on how to support their kids, learn what they were already doing to support their kids at home, and really start to build the reading skill in my students.
And by the time I left the classroom, I understood that, you know, there, there's, there's, there's a lot of kids who come in in a similar position to me who don't have the basic skills they need.
And as a teacher, you can impact a kid in a lot of ways, but there's only so much you can do.
There's only so far that your work can get.
You're only with them for nine months of the year before they move on.
So I believe that it's, it's parents who are, are the most powerful, yet the least utilized tool that we have in this fight against illiteracy.
And if we can bring parents in the process, if we can educate them, regardless of what their educational background is, but if we can help parents
understand, "Here's how you support your kid at home," then the kid can make a lot more progress than trying to work on it alone as the teacher
Erin Bailey: Yeah, I, I love that so much about empowering parents and families, and I think it starts from a couple things.
Your belief that every parent wants what's best for their children, right?
Because there's some educators out there that they don't fundamentally believe that yet.
Um, but starting with the belief that all families want to do we- well for their children, want to help prepare them to, to read.
They maybe just don't have the tools to be able to do so.
And then to your second point, we can build on things that they are already doing.
We do this with students too, right?
Asset base.
We start with what are you already doing well, and then build on that rather than telling them all the things that they're doing wrong
Spencer Russell: Yeah.
And to add to that, there are some educators who I think believe parents want what's best for their kids, they don't believe that parents are actually capable of delivering it.
Erin Bailey: Hmm.
Spencer Russell: if I can talk about the science of reading community specifically, I think there's a lot of people who've gotten a lot of education and know a lot of things, and have forgotten that at some point they didn't know it.
They had to learn it.
They had to be taught it.
And they possess all this knowledge that they think is special and unique to them, without also understanding that the same way they learned it, a parent can learn it too.
And I think there's this, this very pervasive kind of leave it to me that we hear from experts, this leave it to me that we hear from schools and from teachers.
"I'm the expert.
I know how to map this word exactly," or, "I know the exact language of origin and the implications for what sound that these two letters are going to make." When in reality, I believe that anything that I learned, a parent can learn too.
I've, I've learned a lot about teaching.
I've learned a lot about reading.
None of it is special to me.
None of it was something that Spencer was born with.
I, I haven't learned it because I have a high IQ.
I learned it because somewhere along the road, someone believed in me and taught it to me.
And even if you believe parents have their kids' best interests at heart, it doesn't necessarily mean that you believe that parents are capable.
And I think that that second jump is one that more people need to make, and we need to stop holding our knowledge as, as, as being like this incredible thing that is inaccessible
to anyone who doesn't have our specific degree or our specific background, and start to understand, like, our knowledge was taught to us, so we can teach it to someone else.
And that's a big part of my mission, is not to sound like I'm smart, not to sound like I'm important, not to sound like I have this,
this, this knowledge that's, like, impossible, but just let people know, "Hey, there's a really simple way to teach kids to read.
I've learned it.
You can learn it too, and you can actually do it much better than I can because you have more time with your kids.
You know your kids better.
You can customize it.
You can be more consistent." Like, there's all these advantages that parents have.
Outside of just wanting the best for their kid, I think parents can actually give the best to their kid
Erin Bailey: Yeah, I actually, I had that, you know, my background is in literacy of course, but I had that realization about a year ago, um, when my daughter was four and I
was reading aloud to her, and I did some things like, you know, I pointed to the title, read the title out and said, you know, "Which word do you think is this in the title?"
And she pointed to it 'cause she knew the beginning letter and sound.
And then I asked her, "What do you think this book's gonna be about?" And we looked at the pictures together.
And then I had this kind of aha moment where nothing I was doing was truly exceptional, right?
It's just that I knew to do those things, and I think that's what you're describing, is that truly anybody can teach reading.
You just need to learn how to do it.
And like you said, I don't think you walked in as a first-year kindergarten teacher knowing everything about teaching reading either
Spencer Russell: Right.
I think something the field gets wrong, the field meaning science of reading and the reading community, experts who study it, is we think about, like, the science of reading in isolation and what the ideal reading lesson would be.
We get very, very technical about all the different components of, of reading, but we don't think about, like, the reality of a kid's situation, which I think is very important.
And there's an entire other field just dedicated to the science of learning, how people learn.
And if you look at, like, learning science and common sense, you have all of these important, well-established principles like spacing.
Like, we need to space out lessons over time.
We have repetitions, and we need to repeat and repeat and repeat.
We have chunking, and we can learn things better in, in groups.
There's all these principles that are different from the, you know, exact scope and sequence of a reading curriculum or the phonological awareness ladder.
Like, those things exist But so does the way, like, kids' brains learn best, and you, you, you have to put the two things together.
You can't build an ideal program, you know, s- some idealistic this is, this, this, this, th- this pie in the sky ideal of everything we know about learning, without also looking at the practical side of things and what's actually happening.
And what I mean by that is parents can work with their kids five minutes a day, seven days a week if they want to.
If they wanna take a day or two off, they can do five or six days a week.
That five minutes a day, even if the lesson is not perfect, is going to beat one tutoring session that is just totally, you know, exactly what we know about reading science today.
You get an Orton Gillingham trained tutor, 45 minutes with a kid.
They're doing every single thing textbook according to the research.
That one 45-minute session is not going to beat the parent doing five minutes a day.
It won't.
As long as this lesson from the parent is decent, not even perfect, it's just decent.
We're going over some letter sounds.
We're combining them together.
That is gonna win every day of the week.
And it feels like, to me, like, like there's this, um, kinda parallel to, like, fitness, and I, I do a lot of workout analogies, so if this, like, does not make sense, kill it.
But, we generally know how to be in shape.
There's exercise, eating well, sleeping well, drinking water.
I mean, there are some other things, but that's the kind of core component.
You, y- you, you wanna eat good foods, don't eat too much, work out, get good sleep.
That's it.
That's, that's, that's 90% of what you need to do.
But there's, you know, this entire scientific field related to each of those aspects related to sleep, related to nutrition, related to exercise, and you can go down a rabbit hole, and I have on each of these things.
It says the optimal temperature to sleep at is 67 degrees for this many hours at th- this thing, and then when you wake up, you need to get… There's a vitamin D supplement.
It needs to be in oil form and not in pill form, and then you need to do this and this and this and this and this.
And you can execute a perfect day, right?
And, like, do everything exactly as it needs to get.
But if that's, like, one day a week, two days a week, it's here and there, that's never gonna beat the person who's just doing the basics.
They're getting a good amount of sleep.
They're going to the gym.
Their workout might not be perfect.
They're eating well.
It might not be perfect, right?
Like, it is the same to me.
And so I, w- we, we, we need to consider not just what is, like, technically correct in the world of reading or any other world, but what's actually gonna move the needle the most outside of some, you know, carefully designed study.
What's actually gonna move the needle?
I think it's the basics.
It's, it, it's helping parents understand, like you said, when you read, point to the words as you go so your kid learns to understand.
As you start to read a book, maybe you stop flipping and you start coaching them on how to flip the pages.
Once they're ready to recognize letters, teach them the sounds those letters make, and slowly start trunching them together.
I think that's gonna get us further than a lot of what is being kind of designed and pushed out to people today, which I think focuses a lot on being technically perfect but doesn't really hold up in reality
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
I, I mean, I appreciate the analogy, and I think it's, it's spot on, and I hope for families who are listening, they're catching on that it doesn't have to be perfect.
Your five minutes of dedicated imperfection are going to be better, um, you know, than a, a highly skilled tutor and, and more sustainable, I think, is, is your main point
Spencer Russell: Totally
Erin Bailey: Um, okay, so let's shift to screen time because it's something that, uh, you and I have bonded over.
We both have very young children.
and screen time is a concern for, for you and I, as well as, uh, many families today.
Um, and you've been outspoken about the importance of intentional technology use with young children.
How can parents distinguish between what we consider passive screen time and more digital experiences that are going to actually support their literacy development?
Spencer Russell: It's a great question.
I heard someone recently describe it to me through the lens of how a child reacts when you take the screen away, and it's not perfect, but it's simple.
And if you pull the tablet away or the screen away and the kid is able to just kind of accept it and, and, and keep moving, that's a good indication that that screen time was not overstimulating, addictive, all those sorts of negative things that can happen.
but if you pull it away and you've got the tantrum and the reaction and the k- the kid can't separate themself from what they were receiving, it's probably a little bit too stimulating or maybe the wrong thing to put in front of them.
And I, I wanna caveat and be clear up front, every kid is different.
Every brain is different.
I get that
And at the same time, most screen time is bad for kids.
There's certain ages where a kid shouldn't be watching any screens at all based on what we know their brain is doing and developing during th- during those periods.
and I think people know, because I can get very technical about, like, what, what's good and what's bad, what's educational and what's not.
But I, I do think in, in, in our hearts of heart, most people know when the kid i- is watching or doing or engaging with something that is not good for them.
We see how they react to the screen.
We see how they react when it's taken away.
We see how often they, ask for it and they crave it, and they have that relationship with it, not dissimilar from us with our phones.
And we know that, but it can be uncomfortable to name that because that screen time buys us time.
It keeps our kids quiet.
It, it, it resolves the tantrum.
And I am of the mindset after working with many other people's young kids, after having my own young kids, after coaching lots of parents with
young kids, hearing hundreds if not thousands of stories about people with their kids and screens, that generally less screen time is better.
If you are going to put screens in front of your kid, you want to vet it yourself and know how fast the scenes are switching, or what that content is, or what the stimulation mechanisms are, or why it was designed.
Is it designed to keep your kid watching as long as possible, or is it designed to teach them?
That's not always the same thing.
and then even then to closely monitor and have a feedback loop and mechanism that says, "Okay, I tried this with my kid.
Here was the reaction.
I think it's great, I'm gonna keep going," or, "I think it wasn't great, I'm gonna cut back." And it's going to be the same relationship that we have with them throughout their entire life as they move from a TV to tablet to
phone to whatever the technology of the future is, being able to see how are they reacting, how are they responding, does this feel appropriate or inappropriate, and then what do I need to do as the parent as a result of that?
Erin Bailey: I, I think the two big tips that I took from that were about how fast are the scenes switching.
Um, I don't think many parents probably catch, catch on to that.
I would also add in, like, how, um, high contrast the colors, colors are.
Like, are they just these, like, bright colors and fast scenes that are just, like, constantly moving?
And it, you know, it creates this addicting, addictive behavior for, for children.
and also that if you take it away, what's their reaction?
I'm wondering what advice you have for families who they already went down the screen rabbit hole.
They're not… Let's say you have a family that they've given their child a iPhone every single time they've gone to the grocery store, and they're, you know, just tuned into it,
and they're, to name it, they're afraid now because now if I go to the grocery store and I don't give my child the iPhone or iPad or whatever it is, they're going to have a tantrum.
mean, where should they start?
Spencer Russell: They should take it away completely.
There's no two ways about it.
unequivocally, if your kid has an issue with screens, you take it away altogether.
They have an addiction, you kill the addiction.
That's it.
It will be brutal at first, but like I, I've, I've said before and, and I will say again, the bigger the meltdown when you take the screens away, the more necessary it was.
If you take the screen away and the kid has a big reaction, that means that you did the right thing.
Your kid had a problem, they had a connection.
And people will push me on this, they'll fight me on this, but the reality is that people who fight back the hardest are the people who are most addicted themselves.
They have their own issue with screens, their computer, their phone, with Netflix, and it's very hard for someone with an addiction to see that their kid has one too
Erin Bailey: Mm-hmm.
Spencer Russell: You probably both have it.
And solving your own would be a great first step.
Solving your kids is easier.
You take it away completely.
You set very clear guidelines about things that they can do with their time.
You let them know if there's gonna be a re-introductory period that every time they ask for it, every time they complain about it, every time they cl- they, they cry about it, it just pushes that re-introduction back further.
You're not getting it sooner because of that.
You're getting it later.
You are showing me that you're not ready for it because you keep asking, so it's not coming.
And what you can expect, just like with an addiction, is the behavior is going to get worse.
They're gonna be irritable.
They're gonna be cranky.
They're gonna cry.
They're gonna want it.
It's gonna be tough to go to restaurants.
Maybe you go to restaurants and you have to leave those restaurants.
Maybe you go to the store and you've gotta leave the store.
Ultimately, these are small drops in the bucket of what's going to be a very, very long life for your kid, and your job right now is not to look like an awesome parent.
It's not for people in the grocery store to look at you and think you have everything together.
Your job is to help raise a child who's confident, who's stable, who's secure, who's set up for life beyond you.
And I think a lot of people go for quick wins.
They go for easy wins that it's, "Okay, how do I get out of this situation right now? Right now, I give my kid the phone, they'll be quiet." As, as the parent, we need to think beyond right now.
We need to think about 18 years from now.
What's gonna happen when my kid is, is 22, they're out of college, they're living on their own?
Do I want them addicted to the phone like I am, or do I want them to be able to read a book, to look at the world around them, to pick up a hobby, to play a sport?
Like, what do I want my kid to be able to do?
And ultimately, technology runs in the face of a lot of those things.
So I'd say take it away.
It sounds scary.
Again, I've talked to a lot of parents.
I have the a- a- advantage and benefit of talking to a lot of people online.
When I post content about screen time, people message me.
What I hear time and time again is within a week, the kid forgot about it.
Seven days.
I don't think I've ever had someone say this took longer than seven days when they cut it out all the way.
So kill it.
Be ready for a long week.
You know?
Not too different from potty training.
Take that diaper away.
You gotta be on.
You gotta be ready.
Cancel your meetings.
Your kids, your kid's gonna be peeing around the house, you know?
But, but, but you're ready for that week.
You're ready for it because you know if you go all in at the end of that week, this kid's peeing in the toilet, and it's like, it's very similar with screens.
Get ready for that week.
Go all in.
Be ready with some activities, some toys, some games, whatever it is.
Have your scripts, your things ready, w- what to say And by the end of the week, your kid should stop asking for it and you can choose whether you wanna
reintroduce it in an appropriate way at specific times of day under specific circumstances, or if you wanna keep it out altogether until a different age
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
I lo- I mean, you're speaking to my soul.
I also just potty trained my middle son, so we did this, the same thing.
You just take that diaper away.
But I think, uh, in psychology, there's a term for what you're describing.
It's called extinction method, and it's just like it sounds, extinction, right?
You take it away, and it's, it's gone.
What actually makes it worse is if you stagger it so that it's, um, you know, some days you have it and some days you don't.
The, it's gonna take longer that way
Spencer Russell: And again, I think we know this, but to your question, it's fear.
It's being afraid of what's gonna happen when we know that that thing is best.
ultimately, when you choose to become a parent, you're choosing to do and take on one of the hardest jobs there is.
You, you literally have someone else's life who is under your responsibility and under your care, and there's gonna be things that are hard.
There's gonna be things that are uncomfortable.
There's gonna be things that make you a little bit afraid.
It doesn't mean that they're wrong.
It just means it's something for you to think about, to make a plan, and to work through
Erin Bailey: So that brings us to Skybrary, which I mentioned from the beginning is Reading Is Fundamental's e-book platform.
Um, it is designed to just be that, h- very high quality books that you can read on a tablet or device.
Um, so you've chosen to partner with us on this, even though you are very cautious about children's apps in general.
So to you, what made Skybrary different, and why was it worth recommending it to families?
Spencer Russell: Well, I, I think it's different because it is predominantly a book platform designed to give parents and kids access to more books.
And that sounds simple, but a lot of the educational, quote-unquote, "educational resources" for kids are designed to keep them focused on the screen.
The education, I believe, is secondary to how can we capture their attention?
How can we keep them watching and engaging and interacting?
And with Skybrary, it delivers parents and kids with really, really good books.
It's not focused on capturing your kids' attention.
In fact, one of our first conversations when I was learning more, you shared that it was intentionally designed not to do those things, which meant a lot to me as, as a parent and as someone who works with young kids.
the second reason is the educational component.
From what already exists in Skybrary to some of the videos that we were able to create together, being able to also educate parents on
how to read books aloud with their kids, I think makes this very different from a lot of the other screen time that, that kids might have
Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.
And to your point, it's considered a child-centered app, um, which, you know, in the, in the technology or app world, that means exactly what you're describing.
It's not meant to be addicting, and it's not meant to be something that you do for a long period of time.
Just the same way that families typically sit down with their child, and depending on the, their age, maybe read one or two books, five, 10, 20 minutes, that's the same way Skybrary's intended.
You sit down either with your child, or it does have a read to me feature if your child's able to read on their own, they can read on their own.
But you, you read.
You read one, two, a few books, and then you close the app, and you move on with your day.
You go outside, you ride a bike, you, uh, do some dramatic play.
It's, it's a reading app, not something that's meant to c- capture your attention and keep going and going.
It's not gamified in any way.
Spencer Russell: Totally.
Yeah, and I, I, I think that's important.
There are more and more reading apps, in quotes, coming out right now that I think are, like, AI-powered, and it, it's becoming easier and easier to kind of generate stories and books.
But it doesn't mean the books are good, and it doesn't mean that the actual screen time you're putting in front of your kid is, is good.
And I've had to think about this a lot because I have a business and, and a company that's focused on helping people teach their kids how to read, and I now have a lot of competitors who are, like, online digital reading programs.
And where I've landed on it personally is, as, as a parent, th- there's no amount of instruction That will justify my kids getting addicted to screens.
n- no matter how good it is.
If, if, if, if, if there's some reading program that's 10 times better than how they're to read, it, it gets kids reading instantly, and my 19-month-old now,
you know, once I, I start working with him, I, I put him on it, and he learns to read, but he's just, like, glued to the screen, to me, that's not worth it.
I w- I would rather have a kid who can't read, who has a healthy relationship with the world around him, and is taking my time teaching him.
You know, and that's, that's casting these programs in the best possible light, saying that they're infinitely effective.
Most of them aren't.
so where I, I land on apps, where I land on, on, on Skybrary is my, my focus first and foremost is on the kind and the type of screens that we're putting in front of kids, and making sure that it is non-addictive, it, it, it feels safe.
My, my, my focus secondarily is on the educational component and what the kid is learning and, and kind of gleaning and gaining from it, and I feel
like Skybrary checks both of those boxes, which makes it a good fit for me, where I, I don't typically recommend or promote technology generally.
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Yeah, and we're on the, completely on the same page there, and what, that's what I appreciate about the videos that you created for Skybrary.
So for listeners, and we'll be sure to link all of this below in the show notes, Spencer has created some custom videos for Skybrary that give families read-aloud tips.
Um, so what's unique about it is the family, the parent, is the essential component in here.
Skybrary will not teach your child how to read, um, but through watching the tip videos, you will learn some great tips on how to read aloud to your child, how to read aloud with your child, that will build their skills, set up a strong foundation for them.
And you can use these tips not just on Skybrary, which is a book platform, but you can use them with physical books as well.
It- there's just great tips that span both print books and digital books.
Spencer Russell: I appreciate that you like them.
That's very kind.
We really tried to make them simple, straightforward, quick, not me talking for long periods of time like I'm doing on this podcast, but just really quick tips for people to listen to.
because reading to your kid isn't always intuitive, and it's not something everyone is comfortable with.
As more and more research is, is coming out, we have a lot of people who are not interested in reading to their kids or who want to but don't feel confident doing it.
So if, if some of these tips or strategies, even how to kind of voice the characters and kind of get into the emotion while you read can be helpful for people, then I love that
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
And the great thing is you don't have to use every tip every time or with every book.
So I mentioned a few things that I did when my daughter was younger.
I would point to the… I would read the title.
I'd point to the words.
I'd ask her, you know, "This book is called Owl Babies.
Um, which word do you think is babies on the page?
Oh, it must be that one 'cause that one starts with a B, b- babies." You don't need to do that every single time.
It's a tip you can do.
I might flip through some of the pages and say, "What do you think's gonna happen in this story?" And model, "I think this is going to happen because of this picture right here, and that's making me think about that."
Th- they're great tips.
You don't have to use them all every single time.
And I think it goes back to if you have a steady diet of good sleep, good exercise, uh, eating healthy, you're gonna get in the shape that you wanna be in, but you may not do every single thing perfect every single day
Spencer Russell: Yeah, totally.
And, and trying to do everything perfect every day is often where a lot of people lose because they feel hopeless, like they can't do it, like it's too much and it's overwhelming.
And with reading to your kid, there, there's no trophy for who does it the best.
You know, there's no award for doing it perfectly.
You're really trying to create a consistent routine.
Do it for a little bit every day.
Ideally, you're starting to create like a kind of a, a time where your kid just expects this is the read aloud time, this is what we do, and then work in those tips as they feel appropriate, knowing, to your point, you don't have to do them all.
But if, if there's something that can make the experience easier or better or, or more fun, then hopefully you've got a little bit of guidance on how to do that.
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
I love that.
Um, so looking ahead, um, what excites you the most?
What, whether it's new resources that you're developing with Toddlers Can Read, or this collaboration with Skybrary, or just the broader movement,
which I, I see a lot about families feeling empowered to play a strong role in their child's education and, you know, what, what are you excited about?
What do you feel the most optimistic about in the future?
Spencer Russell: Well, I am excited about this movement.
I think there's several movements.
There's a movement towards earlier reading and earlier education, which I think was very taboo in 2021 when Toddlers Can Read started,
but is becoming a larger part of the conversation today, and parents are seeing that you don't have to choose between reading and play.
You can do both.
You can do it from a really young age, and if you do, you can have kids who, who enter school, enter kindergarten really confident in themselves and their reading ability.
There's, I think, another movement that is parents who are being more conscious about the screens that they put in front of their kids, who aren't just accepting, I think, the traditional narrative of parenting is tough, so let's throw our hands up.
Let's stop there.
You know?
I, I, I, I think it's like, like this, this social media idea of like parenting is tough, so let's have a glass of wine, which just means like th- this is hard, so let's give up.
We're doing our best, and to me, that's not okay.
Like, like when you choose to have a kid, you took on a really hard job, and so it's gonna require a lot of you, and that means sometimes cutting out the screens.
It means sometimes doing a little bit of education to learn how to do something better.
It means sometimes being critical of yourself and thinking of ways to improve because that's what your kid deserves.
And I think we're seeing less of that original narrative of like, "This is hard, so, like, we're doing the best we can.
It's all we can do," and more of like, "This is tough, so let's educate ourselves.
Let's try.
Let's figure out how to tackle this challenge appropriately." And I am also excited about some of the resources that will be available to parents, whether it's Skybrary, which I think will be incredible.
I am working with another company who is coming out with a tablet that's like a writing tablet for kids, so it's…
The, the focus is gonna be on, on reading and, and handwriting and, like, interacting in the same way you would with like a pencil and, and paper, but with the tablet.
I have one myself, you know, as an adult where I take my notes, but I think that's a different kind of screen time for kids that's appropriate.
And also, we, we have a ton of new resources coming for Toddlers Can Read.
I've been kind of heads down all summer working on our scope and sequence, how we group some of the advanced sounds, how we tie the sight words to them, the simplest and kind of best way to break it down for parents so it feels approachable.
And that work can be challenging and technical, and it's not always my, my favorite work to do.
But I think the, the final products that parents see are gonna feel just really reassuring and really comprehensive.
And for people, whether they're homeschooling and it's all on them, or they're supplementing what their kid is getting at school, I think it's gonna help them feel a lot more
confident with actually teaching their kids to read, especially once they get to the fluency stage and this kind of advanced reading rule phase where it can feel complicated.
I'm hoping for them that it feels pretty easy
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Oh, that's exciting.
I'm gonna have to check those out myself.
Um, I love just your mentality of, you know, the embrace the, the grind.
I was smiling a little bit 'cause my husband shared with me the other day when he picked up our daughter from summer camp, uh, one of the counselors was kinda wiping his brow and saying, "Oh, that was a tough day."
And he just went up and shook his hand and said, "Nobody said it was gonna be easy." Um, so I feel like that's what you're sharing with families too, is that it is tough.
It's … I mean, and, and I… what everyone always tells me, and I'm sure you hear this all the time too, 'cause you have very young children, is, "Oh, you're in the thick of it."
And it's true, but you didn't sign up to be a parent because it was always going to be, um, easy.
You did it knowing that it was going to be challenging, and because you feel that, y- you know, you have the ability to raise good humans who are ultimately going to make our society and our world a better place.
That's the hope at least.
Um, and nobody said it was gonna be easy.
Spencer Russell: I totally agree.
And I don't wanna sound insensitive or, like, not empathetic because I'm a parent too, and I get it.
And I, and I've got two boys and, I'm, I'm not immune to the challenges of, of parenting.
But you, you don't sign up for a marathon and then complain at mile 17.
Like, you know mile 17 is gonna suck.
You know it's gonna be hard.
You know at the end of the 26, there's something positive on the other side of you.
You're gonna celebrate and enjoy it and, you know, you're gonna have those, those, those wins along the way.
But when you enter something challenging, you just kinda know it's gonna be challenging.
And you can say, "Oh, this, this, this race is gonna be really hard, so let me just, like, give up and walk," or you can say, "Let me, l- let me train.
I'm, I'm gonna do something hard, so let me, let me figure out how I need to eat.
Let me figure out how I need to sleep.
Let me figure out how I need to run.
Let me figure out how to do rest days and recovery days."
And, and, and I think in a lot of ways, parenting is that marathon.
You know, I, I have an eight-year-old and a 19-month-old, I've never raised a third grader or a fourth grader or a fifth grader or a teenager or a high schooler.
I've never put a kid through college.
I've never done these things.
and there's only so much that teaching kindergarten and first grade teaches you about, about life.
I, I didn't know how to take care of babies, you know?
So I can look at it and say, "Wow, this is, like, really hard.
Let's just, like, do our best." Or I can say, "You know what?
Let me learn.
Let me train.
Let me get ready.
Let me prepare myself.
I know this is gonna be hard, so let me try and put myself in the best position to succeed."
And I don't always do well.
A lot of days I fail.
A lot of days I need to be better.
Recently, and recently, I think I mean yesterday, I was in the car re- reflecting on how I've not been as present with my eight-year-old as I wanted to be this summer.
And I just thought about it.
I say, "You, you know what?
Like, I really need to cut off work.
Not just, like, stop working, but mentally
Erin Bailey: Mm.
Spencer Russell: end work and just be with him." And that's not fun to realize.
It doesn't, uh, I don't sit there feeling good and, like, feeling proud of myself.
It kinda sucks, and I'm kind of disappointed in myself, and then I use that to try and be better.
I think that's the key.
And it's, nobody said parenting was easy, just like nobody said that the marathon was easy.
But I think specifically because it's hard, it means that we ask ourselves to give the best of ourselves, and we try to rise to that challenge
Erin Bailey: Yeah, yeah.
And find the joy in it too.
Possibly the biggest challenge is finding joy in those challenging, moments, but, you know, that's what we're here to do
Spencer Russell: Totally agree
Erin Bailey: Um, so I always end by asking, what does reading inspire for you?
I've mixed it up a little bit, uh, lately, so you can either a- answer that question, what does reading inspire for you?
Or who inspired you to love reading?
Spencer Russell: I don't know if I love reading I think it's a complicated question for me.
I decided recently, after Toddlers Can
Read, 2022, that I was going to be a reader.
I didn't associate with being a reader my entire life.
I, I, I read because I needed to.
I read because it was required from high school and college and, and teachers But starting this business was challenging.
And to the previous point about what you do when things are challenging, I realized I needed to learn a lot more.
I needed to learn about finance, I needed to learn about business, I need to learn about strategy, and so I started reading books.
And I just found that there was so much insight and knowledge, and when I, when I read it in a book, it was different than watching it in a video.
it stayed with me in a different way and inspired me in a different way.
My days are different when I start them with reading versus when I don't.
in that way, there's a love and, and there's an appreciation for what reading gives me on a day-to-day level.
but to be honest, I don't think I've ever gotten over my initial feelings about reading, of not feeling very confident, of not feeling very good.
I, I'm still, I think I'm a much slower reader than everyone in my family, than my wife.
I think I'm actually a slower reader than my eight-year-old is.
He's pretty quick, because he learned early.
So there's also still a little bit of a struggle with, with, with reading and picking books up and just feeling like, like, "Why am I still on this chapter?
I should be past this." and, I, I hope everyone builds a love of reading.
I hope that that question is, is simpler for some people to answer.
But for me, more than anything, I think it is an appreciation for reading, for being able to do it, for having that skill.
and it, it's still something I'm, I'm actively trying to improve, actively trying to make a, a, a larger part of my days.
and, uh, it's just been very, very helpful for me in kind of building and growing my business, and then also in some self-improvement stuff too
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
I, I mean, personally, because I've listened to everybody who comes on the show respond to that question, and it is the most challenging question for, for everyone.
But I appreciate your honesty and complexity and thoughtfulness in your response because most people who come on the show are reading enthusiasts who love reading, who are going to say, "I love it because it takes me places, and it makes me a better person.
It helps me build empat- empathy." And all of those are very valid, responses that are helpful to, you know, support my mission around the joy of reading.
But what I appreciate about what you just shared is that it's challenging.
And to, back to the point I, I said earlier, there is joy in challenge.
Like, joy is actually a very complex, uh, emotion where you can find joy in even those moments of rigor and challenge because to your point, you may not love it, but you value it, and that's important, too
Spencer Russell: Totally.
I think that's a, a, a better way to put it.
My wife loves reading.
She was a great reader growing up.
My eight-year-old loves reading.
I taught him to read when he was two.
He's dialed in.
Uh, I think sometimes our childhood just stays with us and, and, and those kind of fundamental experiences are tough to shake.
And I know a lot of people who are adults who don't love reading.
I know a lot of people who can't read.
And the goal, if you're one of those people listening or you, you've struggled with reading growing up, is maybe you're not gonna love reading.
Maybe you're gonna kind of deal with this for the rest of your life, but you can come to appreciate it and value it, and it can still play a role in your life.
And I think more importantly, you can help your child love it.
You can create a different experience with your kid than the one that you had if you start early or if you put the right resources in front of them or if you help build the skill in the right way.
And I, I, I say "right" loosely 'cause it doesn't need to be perfect.
But for me, I am more proud of, of having helped my son learn to read and love reading than I am of me kind of building this habit in adulthood.
I love that I have the habit.
I appreciate what it's done for me, but it's amazing that I've, that I've helped someone else to build what I, I anticipate being a, a lifelong love of reading
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Yeah.
I think my dad would actually say the, something similar, that his joy of reading came from helping my brothers and I learn to read and learn to love reading.
So thank you for sharing that, Spencer, and thank you for all that you do for families, um, every single day
Spencer Russell: Thank you.
I appreciate it
Erin Bailey: All right.
Thank you all.
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Thank you for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.
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