Turning Letters Into Friends With Letterland

Letters can be surprisingly hard for young kids. They’re just shapes until a child can link each squiggle to a sound, then blend those sounds into real words. From the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Vicki Norris, a trainer at Letterland International, to talk about a character-based approach to phonics that helps children make that leap with less struggle and more joy.

Website: spotlight4success.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to American Book Company Spot Life for Success. I'm your host, Danielle Pintozi, and today we are at the NCRA conference in North Carolina. And beside me, we have our special guest, Vicki Norris. She is a trainer at Letterland International. And we are so excited to have you on our podcast today. Now, Vicki, tell us what brings you to NCRA today.

What Letterland Is And Why

Multisensory Reading That Makes It Stick

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Well, it is a reading conference, and we actually focus on teaching children how to read. And I love this conference that we have in North Carolina. We have a lot of teachers in North Carolina that use our program when we get to visit with them, update them on products, but then also introduce Letterland to teachers who are unfamiliar with their product. And what does Letterland offer? Oh, Letterland offers an exciting and engaging way to enter learning the alphabet. So for example, all of our letters in the alphabet are abstract for children, right? They're just squiggles on a page. But in Letterland, each of our letters become characters. Characters that are fun, engaging, that are memorable. The characters become the children's friends. So for example, the letter H. When you say the the name of H, do you hear the sound that that letter makes? No. You don't hear at all. But in Letterland, it's Harry Hatman. And he is helpful. He's happy. He hates noise. It gives him a horrible headache. So you whisper when you make a sound. Can you try that? No, it's a medicine. It's in my medicine. That's smart. Yes. And so the thing that's so exciting about this program is that it gives teachers like an incredible way to unlock literacy. We have lots of engaging strategies, we have movement, we have songs. You already saw that we had some actions. And research has found that when you have embedded mnemonics, it's a more efficient and more effective way of teaching children to read. And we do it all the way from pre-K through third grade.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Was there a specific light bulb moment when you've gone to train teachers or a light bulb moment you've witnessed in a classroom with a Letterland?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Oh, that happens all the time. It happens with children, it happens with teachers, it happens in workshops. Like for example, um, I had a teacher once say to me, I don't understand what it is when I am placing my sounds on my arm and blending that makes it stick for kids. And I said, Well, it's a multisensory approach in which you're really helping kids understand how blending takes place. So when you place the sound of m, I, here, and then you blend these first two sounds, mat, all together, mat, that's helping them take the abstractness out of looking at these letters, and we're given a multi-sensory, continuous instruction that helps them blend. It works.

Teacher Workshops And Classroom Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I can definitely see how that would work. That uh kind of muscle, mind, memory, you're exactly right. Yeah, that's amazing. And um you mentioned to me before this uh that you presented here at NCRA, correct?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yes, it was really a lot of fun. My colleague Chris Rogers and I did a two-hour workshop on Sunday with teachers who had been using Letterland. So it was like um for for existing uh users to come and then uh let us do some coaching with them and and answer questions that they have and introduce some new features that we've brought since they've um while they've been using Letterland. And it was interesting. We had a lot of brand new people that had never heard of Letterland that came to that session, and but then those that uh were users they were able to take away information. But everyone else that was there that was unfamiliar with it, they walked away with strategies that they can now implement in their classroom. That was one session, and then another session I did yesterday was uh for folks who were not familiar with Letterland, and so I was able to introduce uh what Letterland is, how we uh help teachers and help children. I talked a lot about the research and how the brain uh develops and reading, and then show them how using the system that Letterland uses, how it uh helps children learn quickly, effectively, and then get them on a trajectory of success for life.

Research Focus And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Well, congratulations on your presentation. It sounds like it went really well.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

It was a lot of fun. A lot of great teachers are at this conference, and it's such a well-run conference. It's very organized.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

With that being said, is there anything else you want to share with the NCRA community before we close out?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Uh no, but thank you so much for having us here and allowing us to sponsor a breakout session, and and um we just appreciate having the opportunity to be here.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Well, thank you, Vicky, for joining us on Spilite for Success today. We appreciate all you have to say. You sound like you're an amazing person, and uh hope you enjoy the rest of your conference. I will. Thank you. Have a great day.