Building Confident Readers Through High Quality Decodables with Christine Hjorth, Cherish Mims & Letitia Truslow

Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

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Erin Bailey: Welcome everyone.

T- joining us today are Christine Yorth, author of the Aligned Decodables and CEO of Aligned Educational Resources; Cherish Mims, Epic's Manager of Education Relations and a former classroom teacher; and Latisha
Truslow, who leads Epic School Plus and customer experience, all bringing unique perspectives on how we can give educators the right tools and help more kids discover the joy and confidence that comes with reading.

So welcome.

Thank you all for joining us

Christine Hjorth: Thank you

Cherish Mims: you for having us

Erin Bailey: So Epic, uh, um, is known for making books accessible digitally.

It's a e-book platform who has recently joined up with re- uh, Reading Is Fundamental on a physical library refresh in Los Angeles, which I had the opportunity to attend, um, where RIF pr- provided print books.

Why was it so important for Epic to support a print literacy initiative, and what does that say about the role of digital and print books working together to help children become successful readers?

Letitia Truslow: Aaron, I love this question.

Um, it really speaks to our shared mission.

So you know, think stories are stories, books are books, and we know that children who grow up surrounded by books tend to develop stronger literacy skills.

And so what better way to complement one another than physical books, which, let's face it, take up a lot of space, sometimes they're expensive, with a digital platform.

We have 40,000 titles on the Epic platform, and so you know, this is an opportunity for whether it's in a different environment to use it, on the go, in a car, um, on vacation, but there's just lots of synergy between the two.

And again, we're-- it-- this is all about a shared, our shared mission around literacy for children

Erin Bailey: Yeah, I love that.

It's something actually that no one's mentioned before about the fact that physical books take up space, and that digital books are great for on the go.

I mean, you have at your fingertips thousands of books.

It's great for travel, in the car, anywhere, anywhere that you are.

So I think we've talked a lot about how print books can be m- you know, more expensive, um, but the space element is, is key too.

So thank you for adding, um, that to the conversation.

So something very exciting is that Epic is adding over 250 decodable books to your platform, and I have to make sure I pronounce decodable so everyone can
understand me, because one time I was confused, uh, for saying Dakota bowls, um, which is kind kind of funny thinking the topic of decodables is, is phonics.

Um, so Christine, w- can you give our audience, a little working definition around what are decodable books, and why are they such an important part of the science of reading, and how do they help young readers build that strong foundation for reading?

Christine Hjorth: Absolutely.

So a decodable book is essentially at its heart a phonics book.

And in the past, we had phonics books, I taught in the early 2000, and they would focus on a sound.

For example, like the digraph SH.

The problem with those books were it never paid attention to what the child was actually learning at the time.

So the book that had an SH sound in it might have the word shuttle in kindergarten, where a student in kindergarten, there's a lot of skills in that word that they cannot sound out.

So what decodables do is they take what they're learning in sequence and include only those sounds as they're moving through the scope and sequence.

So if you have, usually digraph comes right after consonants and short vowels, so then you're gonna have words like ship instead of shuttle.

The reason that decodables are so good is because, um, it practices the skills in real time that the students are learning in a real format.

So if they're learning phonic skills, then they're adding one to the decoding sequence, and they're practicing it at, that at the, the right time to get those skills, to get the confidence, and to know that reading is just about building those skills

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

So y- 250 is a lot.

Can you explain why did you need so many?

And, uh, you've shared with me some great efforts that you put into making sure that these resources are actually aligned to curriculum that teachers are already using.

Can you share a little bit about that?

Christine Hjorth: Well, I can take that question too.

So when I started writing, I was a first-grade teacher, and when I was in the classroom, I was writing decodable materials for my class at the time.

And so what I realized is that I could make more stories and more books and have them illustrated to help lots of students.

But the problem with that is, if you don't know where it falls into the scope and sequence, you don't know how to use it appropriately.

So for example, technically everything is decodable.

The book War and Peace is decodable to you, but it isn't decodable to a kindergartner.

So you need to know in that scope and sequence, what have they already learned and where are they going?

And the problem is that there's 23 to 30 different curriculums, and you'd be surprised how different their scope and sequences are.

So just-- You can't just say, "Well, the scope and sequence is CVC, short vowel, then blends, then digraphs, then silent E." They are all mixed up.

So the only way for the teacher in the past to use them was to look at the skills on the back of the book and then try to figure out where this book fell, which is a lot of work.

I was a first-grade teacher.

I did not have a lot of time to do that.

So when I started doing it myself, I thought the best way to do this is to actually make the alignment chart so that it's all done for the teachers already.

So when I started working with Epic, it was awesome because I was able to explain this to them, and they set it up on the platform in a way that's easy for teachers to find their own curriculum and then find the alignment chart to use the books

Erin Bailey: Yeah, I taught first grade as well, so I would definitely use that kind of chart.

I find that, I, I mean, I'd probably be that person who printed it out and had it on a clipboard, honestly.

Christine Hjorth: Definitely.

It's available in PDF format.

I completely, I would have it taped behind my desk, you know what I mean?

And know, okay, these are the books that I wanna use

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

Um, so Cherish, where do these Decodables books fit into effective literacy instruction?

We talked about these being an add-on to curriculum that's already being used.

Um, what are some practical ways that teachers can use them to help their students be more confident readers?

Cherish Mims: Great question.

So I believe the key to use decodable texts is as a bridge between that direct phonics instruction and those authentic reading experiences.

So this is gonna allow those students to have repeated opportunities to practice the phonetic skill that's directly being taught, and most importantly, experience reading success to build and boost their confidence.

So for example, if a teacher is teaching a s- specific phonetic skill that week, um, whether that's a short vowel or consonant blend, um,
from their chart, they would then choose a decodable text to pair it with that gives them repeated opportunities to practice those patterns.

So after directly teaching that skill, students can then reread that text with a partner, um, or independently or in a small group or one-on-one with the teacher to apply those patterns and skills wi- within that book.

Um, I would say another opportunity is through rereading.

That's an easy way to embed this in, in instruction.

So the first read of that decodable text is gonna be for accuracy.

Reading, um, with accuracy, and that's gonna be typically with the teacher or whole group.

And then that way, that second and third time reading that decodable text, it could be for fluency, expression, comprehension.

Again, this is just allowing that student to experience success and really shift their mindset so that they can say, "I can do this. I can read this." And they're experiencing that confidence boost that they need to become independent readers

Erin Bailey: I love that.

And I imagine this is helpful for families too, right?

Like, if I'm a family who doesn't have a background in literacy and I get a note home that just says, "This week we're working on digraphs," I might not know what that means.

But if I have a tangible book that I can practice digraphs, then I'm like, oh, it's, you know, H Brothers or how- what- however I learned it

Whatever I wanna call it with my child that's gonna be fun and bring it to life, you know?

Cherish Mims: Correct.

Um, my daughter just wrapped up first grade, and, um, her teacher would do exactly that.

They would send home whatever phonic skill they were learning, learning for that week, and also send a paired text, and that way we could work through those skills at home.

Well, with Epic, you can easily assign that collection specifically on that phonetic skill that they're practicing or just an individual book.

You can assign it to families and just really equip them with the access to the tools available so that families are confident, uh, with, you know, supporting their student at home reading.

Erin Bailey: That's amazing.

And I'm, like, that assigning too, because like you said, like you were saying earlier, there's 250 books, right?

Like, I'm… And they don't all follow the same, not every curriculum follows the same scope and sequence, so as a family member, I might not know which… I'm like, "I know my child needs to read decodable books.

I'm not sure which ones or in which order." So being able to have that assigned I can see is super beneficial, too.

And I should mention, I will also include the link to that in the show notes for everyone who wants to get access to these

Christine Hjorth: I also wanted to add that, um, as a first-grade teacher, I was trying to create all the books that I would want in my classroom.

So what's really great is that I have different kinds of decodables.

So there's the story ones, which you can work on comprehension and vocab, and there's also ones called blending books that are working just on the sounds and putting it together and sentence-level comprehension.

There's fluency books that are like a sentence pyramid, so that they're rereading the sentence.

So there's lots of different kinds, and there's some called passage books that don't have any pictures, so you're working fully on comprehension.

So a s- a teacher has a lot of opportunities.

If you're working with the, you know, SH sound, you might have three different books that you can use to practice that skill

Erin Bailey: Yeah, that's a- a variety is key.

I mean,

Christine Hjorth: Yeah.

Erin Bailey: goodness, decodables have come such a long way.

Uh, I mean, how many times can you read that the fat cat sat on the mat before you're just bored of it, right?

So I'm wondering, Christine, if you can share a little bit about like what kind of elements of story writing and story creation went into this effort to, to make them not boring, you know?

Christine Hjorth: That's a great question.

So I actually taught my own children, I have two, two teenagers now, um, using the Bob books, which there's nothing wrong with the Bob books.

They're very simple and, and, and that worked for the time, but they are obviously pretty bland, you know?

And so what happened was when I was teaching, I was actually teaching first graders how to write, and so I would make little stories with them all the time, and it actually kinda honed my silly story writing.

And so I was looking for ways to make it engaging that were, that were, they were a little sillier or that they didn't quite know what was gonna happen in the story.

And by just focusing on, "Okay, these are the only words I can use. I'm gonna write a story just with these words." You know, and another thing that makes them
engaging is that, because I worked with six-year-olds, I think, you know, I have a little bit more understanding of what's funny to a six-year-old, you know?

And so I think sometimes as teachers we've seen materials that maybe were written by teachers of older students and don't necessarily know like what six-year-olds are really engaged in, you know, and what they think is silly.

So that definitely helped me.

And another way I made them engaging was to, um, which I could talk further about what's

I have like what's called a flashcard format.

the decodables, obviously we know that the cueing system is not really, we do not want them to picture cue.

We don't want them to use the, the picture to try to, guess or predict what a word might be.

And, um, so what I did was the sentence is alone on a page.

They have to read it without any clue.

But when they turn the page, they get to see the picture that goes with the sentence, and that allowed me for two things.

Number one, it really focuses on decoding.

But number two, it can build engagement, because what I did was the sentence, sometimes they think they know what they're gonna see when they turn the page, but I kind of flip the switch on them.

You know what I mean?

So that when they turn the page they see something silly, and it makes them want to keep going to see what the next thing is

Erin Bailey: I, I think that's really cool too for children's imaginations.

Like, I vividly remember when I was in first grade, my teacher read aloud to us one time.

I- and it was only one time that she did this.

The book was Shrek.

Um, and so she read aloud Shrek to us and actually had us draw the pictures that we thought went with Shrek, which was really cool because I don't

You know, you knew Shrek was an ogre and ugly and all that, but you wouldn't know what the picture said.

So I, like … And that experience stuck with me all these years.

So I think it's great for creativity.

The other thing is it shows kind of the power of the difference between decoding and the pictures, and your background knowledge too, right?

Because if I can read the word cat and I know C is c, A is a, and T is t, and I can blend them together, my personal experiences are what gonna sh- is what's gonna shape.

When I just read the word cat without any pictures, do I see a black cat, like Halloween?

Do I see Garfield?

And so then for you to kinda like flip it on them shows to students, like, how things can be so different, you know?

Christine Hjorth: And it's also, um, you know, in terms of comprehension, one of the biggest things that's pushed right now is visualization.

It's reading those words and visualizing what it's gonna be be- you know, because when you get to books without pictures, obviously that's what you're gonna need to do.

So Cats is a great example.

I have a book named Cats, and it's, you know, a- about these two little cats, and it says the cat can sip.

Okay, so you might think a cat's sitting in front of a bowl and he's, you know, licking the thing.

But really they're sitting, when you turn the page, they're at a table with little teacups.

You know what I mean?

And so it's a chance for them to be like, you think you know what you're gonna see, but you don't know what you're gonna see.

And it's also a great way to build vocabulary because, you know, I can use a lot of words.

Like, um, there's a book called Cliff the Pest, and he does all sorts of crazy things, but he flops on the ducks.

Okay, what does it mean to flop?

You know, it's different than jumping.

You know what I mean?

So in the picture then they get to see, oh, he's, he's full out.

He's ready to, you know, flop on top of them.

So you can really build that vocabulary by using the different pictures and using the different words

Cherish Mims: I love that.

I wanted to add one thing because based on the, what you both were talking about and students experiencing, because we don't want them to think phonics is, like, the end goal.

We want them to make meaningful reading experiences and know that they're reading to become independent learners, dreamers, thinkers.

And so engaging with the text post, applying those skills by retelling or, you know, what was your favorite part, or having them, you know, make those
visualizations or identifying character feelings, that's gonna push them beyond that phonics instruction and make that experience meaningful for them.

So I think that's a great, you know, just quick teaching strategy that educators can use as well to really make that reading stick

Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.

we all are clearly passionate about the benefits of decodable text.

I'm wondering, Latisha, if you can share what inspired Epic to expand its decodable offerings, assuming there were, you know, there were some decodables in there.

But to really put the emphasis on creating these 250 books and aligning them to the different curriculum

Letitia Truslow: Yeah.

I think, Erin, the short answer is relationships.

So we at Epic, we prioritize relationship building with districts, and principals, and superintendents, teachers, parents, students, you know.

And it, it's in that vein, you know, part of relationship was with one of our larger districts, very active and engaged with the Epic product.

They came to us and said, "Hey, we need-- you know, we could really use some more decodables." and that started a conversation that one qu- you know, request
started, quite a bit of back and forth internally within the organization within Epic, um, trying to understand more about, well, what is it that you're looking for?

We had some decodables on the platform.

You know, tell us a bit more.

Why aren't those, you know, meeting your needs?

What are your needs?

Like, what would meet your needs?

And so really we did that deep dive, and, um, very spontaneously after I had been talking with our content team, they work with the publishers.

We have about 250 publisher partners.

Um, and so I'd been talking to them internally, you know, this is what our-- this is what we're hearing.

Um, we'd really like to bring some more decodables online.

And then lo and behold, um, at a conference, the NCTE conference, National Conference for Teachers of English, we at our Epic booth, met Christine, who's on the call.

Um, we met Christine.

Christine came to the booth.

We started chatting.

She said the word decodables, and the next thing you know, we are running, not walking, uh, towards Christine's books.

And we're starting a project to bring them, ingest them into the Epic platform, and as Christine said, also provide teachers with the
scope and sequence and the alignment charts that they need in order to find exactly what they're looking for, at the right-- at that time.

So the collections, the 250 books, you know, they're, they are organized based on curricula.

So the 23 curricula, we put all the books in those separate collections based on the curricula.

and so far all the feedback has been phenomenal.

It's been really great.

So it, it goes back to relationship really.

We just, we, we have these, these conversations, we listen, and we took some action.

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

It seems serendipitous to say the

Christine Hjorth: It was.

It really was.

Letitia Truslow: Yes.

We are, uh, Christine and, and Cheris, myself, we all say that all the time, how it was incredibly fortuitous.

And, and even to the point where Epic hadn't been attending conferences for quite a while, and this was the first conference that we attended in, in quite some time.

And so the fact that, you know, as we internally had been talking about, you know, where are we gonna source decodable titles?

And, and quite frankly, like, higher quality decodable titles.

'Cause what we had on the platform wasn't meeting our teachers' needs.

And so, it was completely serendipitous.

It was, it was as if it was meant to be, I think, Christine, right?

Like, um, that you came to us, and, and it just started that, another

Christine Hjorth: Because it was really right at the right time.

Because I, um, I've been doing this now for five years, and I was-- I had said no to a lot of other opportunities that had come up for me, different distributors and things like that, and I just thought I wanted to wait until I found the right one.

And so Epic, I really felt… You know, I didn't have Epic when I was teaching in the classroom.

I would've absolutely loved having Epic if I had taught in the classroom.

You know, we've talked before, too, that, you know, what's great about having a platform that has the decodables but also be on Epic is that if the students
are reading a book called Cats, and they're-- or, you know, I have a book called Kids and Pups, which is about baby animals, that they can read, just CVC words.

But then the teacher can assign other books that are, like, higher level, like read-alouds, or their parents can read it to them.

There's a video.

You know, and it's amazing because now you can, like, cross, Assign these books so that if you're doing a unit on, on baby animals, now they're reading a book but also have acc- access to all these other books

Letitia Truslow: I love that word a- access, Christine.

We are always talking about how important that is, right?

And, and I think that's what Epic brings to the table is access to 40,000 titles, which, let's face it, is an awful lot.

So there's a ton to, you know, to sample on that buffet of, of books.

and especially for that at home, you know, outside of school hours, being, um, having access, not having

Maybe, maybe parents are not necessarily able to get to the library for a variety of reasons.

And just the ease with which we offer this.

You know, we call it, we call Epic the Netflix of books, and it … And for a reason, because really the con- there's so much content, um, to Christine, to your point, you know?

So it makes it … Access is simple, and it makes it easy to assign books and, and read books outside of school.

Erin Bailey: I'm glad you

brought up, um, how read-alouds and decodables can support each other.

I'm wondering if I can pull on that thread a little bit more.

I think a lot of folks out there, families and teachers, are hesitant towards decodables, and I myself was o- was one of these, um, teachers because, and again, this is speaking of decodables out of the past, we've

Christine Hjorth: That's fine.

Erin Bailey: um, because the s- the stories can be quite dry, and we wanted to have s- students having, like, a real literature experience.

Can you share a little bit about what you wish families understood about decodables, and teachers and families, and, you know, what are the misunderstandings, and what do you wish that they understood?

Christine Hjorth: I think that you, you've pretty much hit on it.

The, the biggest dis- misinformation about decodables is that they're dry, that you cannot teach comprehension with them, that you cannot teach vocabulary with them, and, and that's just not really true.

And, um, the fact that they're not engaging, the fact that they can't learn anything from them.

You know, there's, there's so much more that we can do with decodables now if you just kinda have an imagination for it's just words, and I'm gonna use whatever words that I can use to … You know, I have books that are based in sports.

I can have books that are based in, you know, there's a whole nonfiction, you know, thing.

Snakes, spiders, dogs.

And you can use those while at the same time building in the read-alouds, because obviously there's some vocabulary that in kindergarten isn't going to fly.

You know, in second grade it will, but in kindergarten it's not.

So you want kind of a little bit of both of that

Cherish Mims: I would, I would agree on that.

I think one other misconception would be also that decodables are just for struggling readers.

when in fact, no, they're, uh, they're a practice tool for all emerging readers, allowing them the building blocks to decoding skills.

Because the English language is hard.

Learning how to read is hard work, and these students are doing it daily.

But it's breaking it into, you know, manageable, smart, segmented pieces for students where they can apply these skills and experience success.

Because if they don't build that confidence, experience success, they're not gonna wanna continue doing it.

We wanna build them up, independent readers, lifelong learners, and decodables is the key to do that

Christine Hjorth: I definitely wanna follow up on what she said.

It's absolutely true.

They're not just for struggling readers, and they're not just for kindergartner either.

People thinks, they think of a decodable like CVC words.

where I just added to my collection a morphology set, which is really meant for the end of second grade, beginning of third grade, and they're all on Epic.

And what they focus on is those prific- prefixes and suffixes.

So there's a book, you know, that's about Simone Biles or Taylor Swift or, you know, about, you know, and there's also fiction that is really using that ending.

For example, there's a book called Desert Animals, and the ending is N-E-S-S.

So there's a lot of words in there like the dryness of the desert.

You know what I mean?

The quietness of the night, you know?

And so Teachers can then use that to pull out those words and really drill down on that suffix in that case, and that's a learning opportunity that is in a decodable, but really it's focused on something else

Erin Bailey: Yeah.

I, I love that, and, uh, well, a couple things.

I love that there are nonfiction options

too.

that's excellent.

And I… To go back to something that you said at the beginning, every book is decodable once you've mastered phonics, right?

So it's great that… And, and I mean, I'm gonna use myself as an example.

Before we even hit record, I introduced myself, and then I asked everyone to go around, and I practiced pronouncing your names, because names are different origins.

So myself, as someone who is still learning to read, 'cause I fully believe we are always still learning to read, I learned something new,
Christine, about your name, which is Hjorth, and the origin of it, and why the H-J makes that, what would typically be, like, a Y sound, right?

And so we are always still learning to read, so I appreciate the fact that they didn't stop at, you know, first, second grade, and the way that you said that every book is, is decodable once you've mastered those phonic skills

Christine Hjorth: Um, another thing I wanted to bring up too in terms of having them all on Epic or, you know, in … I also have them in physical copies, is that, um, you can differentiate.

When I was in the classroom, one of my biggest thing was trying to differentiate for student needs.

And in this case what I did was, there'll be certain books, like a topic like dogs, and there's like five different versions.

So there's one with just CVC, and then you, there's one with blends.

There's one that, you know, adds in higher level sounds and then vowel teams.

So if you have a classroom, let's say a first grade classroom, where we all know you have students on a whole bunch of different levels, you can assign them the books.

And everybody's learning about dogs, and everyone's coming back and telling something about dogs without feeling like they're at a disadvantage.

So it's, for me, it's always the success and that self-esteem and that loving of, of reading that really makes a difference

Cherish Mims: Which takes us back to that word access.

Christine Hjorth: For sure

Cherish Mims: Epic is able to meet every student where they are now, not where we want them to be, but there's something available for every student, on Epic

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

So looking ahead, um, what do you hope that Epic's expanded decodable collection will have?

What impact will it have on classrooms, families, and readers?

Christine Hjorth: Well, I mean, certainly I think this is where education is going, um, thankfully.

I think that we're, we're, you know, we're following the science of reading or at least structured literacy.

I don't think everything's been thrown out.

I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But we're moving towards structured literacy, especially in K through two.

Honestly, I feel like that's where it's really important, is to get those decoding skills in the beginning years so that when you hit third, fourth grade, you can sound out a word and then you work on, you know, the higher level comprehension skills.

So I think having the access to the decodables is absolutely key

Letitia Truslow: Let me riff off of that too, Christine, to say that like it would be wonderful to see more at home as well as in-classroom engagement.

I think sometimes we can think of Epic as the school, it's a tool to use in school, yet there's also an opportunity and an option to read from home.

So getting-- even getting the parents, as we've talked about in this conversation today, sort of looping them in, making these accessible to the parents.

So y- as you said, Aaron, the parents don't need to have a full understanding of what these are and how they work.

They just need to know they're available.

Here's what the teacher's assigning, and outside of those school hours, then kids can be reading with their parents and practicing.

So I think engagement is, is something we'd all hope to see more of in the future

, Cherish Mims: my hope is, you know, with us expanding the decodable collection, again, it's providing that access of engaging literacy to meet students where they are, um, giving teachers access to texts that meet all of their needs in the classroom.

Because as we know, like Christine said, teachers are gonna have students at various reading levels in the classroom, and they may not have texts, physical texts, that they can, uh, use to support every student.

because if you're in a first grade classroom and you have kids reading, at pre-K or then you may have some students already reading at a second grade level, um, that is the classroom of today, where it is across the board various, uh, levels.

But, um, Epic can give them access to all of those tools and helping also families feel confident with supporting students in the home.

Letitia Truslow: Can I-- I wanna share some of the sweetest things we've heard, and maybe that also puts a punctuation on what you said, Cherish.

is that honestly, um, we find with a lot of English language learners that the parents are also learning English alongside of their students.

And so the sweetest thing is hearing from teachers and literacy experts telling us how much the parents have enjoyed using Decodables, reading on the Epic platform, um, again, learning English alongside their own children.

If that doesn't give you goosebumps and make you really happy, I don't know what will, right?

just another layer to this, to, to the whole conversation today

Christine Hjorth: And on that point, I mean, that's one thing I really focused on.

I, I love words.

It's, it's really just obviously from ri- being a writer, I just love them.

And, and with English as a second language, a lot of times it's the different definitions of words that really trip them up.

So that's one thing I focused on in the books.

Like for example, in the one book, uh, the pig is in a pen, okay, which is like, you know, the little place where he stays on the farm, but he's jotting with a pen.

So it says, "The pig jots with a pen in the pen." So now you have a discussion about what are these words, and why are they the same word but they're two different things?

Because I think that's one thing that's hard for students and English as a second language to be like, "Well, it's the same word." And that's built right from the beginning.

It's not just one lesson, you know what I mean, on, on, you know, words that are spelled the same that mean different things.

It's through the entire series

Erin Bailey: That's exciting.

Well, thank you all so much for sharing that.

I always end the episodes with this very challenging question, um, which is what does reading inspire, uh, for you?

And we can start with you, Cherish

Cherish Mims: I would say reading inspires me to see what's possible.

open new doors to new ideas, different perspectives, and endless possibilities.

Uh, allows me to see that every story has power and allows me to dream, learn, and grow as a reader

Letitia Truslow: Um, yeah, I would say reading inspires me to explore new worlds, both from the writer's viewpoint and also my own in a creative way.

So it's sort of like tapping into, tapping into my own creativity as well,

um, thinking through the story.

It's just, it's, it's wonderful to dive into other worlds

Christine Hjorth: And for me, I mean, I've always been an avid reader with a big imagination, and it inspires me to think of new things.

And, and a lot of what I focus on is, is the students who are reading and using books to teach them, you know, about kindness and about helping
others and about what is right, what it's like to be, you know, a good person and have perspective, and that's one thing I really focused on

Erin Bailey: Amazing.

Well, thank you all.

I'm so excited for these decodable books to be on Epic.

I'm definitely going to check them out myself, and I recommend all listeners to go check them out as well.

Thank you for joining

Thank you for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas, meaningful connections, and a renewed love of reading.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a fellow literacy champion, and join us next time as we continue exploring what reading inspires