Reading Instruction Done Right with Nancy Blair and Pat Roberts

Melissa (0:01)

It's Dyslexia Awareness Month, and here's something a lot of parents and teachers still don't realize. Dyslexia often shows up in a family long before anyone has the word for it.

Lori (0:12)

That's exactly how today's guests found their way into this work, through personal experiences with dyslexia that led them in different ways into the classroom.

Melissa (0:21)

Their stories woven together led them to build something teachers everywhere are still learning from.

Lori (0:28)

Joining us today are Pat Roberts and Nancy Blair, co-founders of AIM Academy, celebrating 20 years this year.

Melissa (0:36)

They'll share what they wish had been caught earlier and how that shaped the way AIM teaches reading today.

Lori (0:44)

Hi teacher friends. I'm Lori.

Melissa (0:47)

And I'm Melissa.

Lori (0:48)

We are two educators who want the best for all kids and we know you do too.

Melissa (0:54)

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori (0:59)

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa (1:04)

Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori (1:10)

Hi, Pat and Nancy. Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad you're here.

Pat Roberts (1:14)

We're excited to be here.

Nancy Blair (1:16)

You know, we've been listening to the two of you and all of your amazing guests for so long that it's just an honor to be on with both of you.

Melissa (1:26)

And we are so excited. We've been, I feel like, learning alongside of you for so many years too. And I can't believe that you all founded AIM Academy 20 years ago in 2006 That's so, that's, you should be so proud of that accomplishment. That's amazing. But we wanted to start with just kind of learning about how you all got here to where you are now and you both took really different paths and then joined together to make a dynamic duo like me and Lori.

So we wanted to hear first, like what was your world like before AIM Academy? And like what were you seeing that started to kind of make you think that you needed to do something different in this education reading world? And Pat, can you start us off?

Pat Roberts (2:13)

I'd love to. This is an exciting background piece that we always talk about, Nancy and I, because we were running these parallel tracks before we started AIM. So it's always fun to see how it comes together. So I'll take you to the time right before it's coming together. So my background is an educator, and I am the oldest of three siblings. So I'm the boss, always wanted to be a teacher.

And I was greatly influenced by my public school experience in the school district of Philadelphia. And I was fortunate to have a kindergarten and first grade teacher back to back, same teacher. And that, then I was hooked. That was what I was going to be.

But as, you know, life came along, what happened was when I graduated from my teacher prep program, there were no teaching jobs in public education. It's almost hard to imagine.

But there were none. And so what I wound up doing was teaching at my alma mater. And they had a lab school. And that really formed everything I think about, education. I was working on grants, I was doing teacher training, I was in the classroom, and I was doing research. And little did I know that that really would be the foundation for what would later become my thinking about AIM and what we needed to do. But I took a side path and did education, but in the corporate world. And I was doing corporate training. And it's a very long story how I got there. But when the lab school closed, I decided I needed to become an entrepreneur in education, which is what I did. And I wound up doing that for quite a number of years, sold the business that I had developed after 13 years. But here's what happened. I was bored. Now hold that thought because Nancy factors into this. So I thought I was going to retire. But what wound up happening is, I was asked back to my alma mater to do student teaching supervising. Now I had been out of the classroom, the K-12 classroom, for 13 years. And I'm thinking, oh, this can be exciting. Let's see what's happened. And I was almost stepping into a time warp. And that was eye-opening to me.

And then I was able to start the Institute for Educational Excellence in Entrepreneurship because I thought we have to do more entrepreneurially with educators to allow them to blossom.