AXSChat Podcast with Cigdem Knebel - Founder of Simple Words Books.

When Cigdem Knebel struggled to find decodable “big-kid” chapter books a young dyslexic could painlessly read, she began to write one herself for her son. Cigdem is the founder of Simple Words Books. Her mission is to help young dyslexics and early readers with fluency, comprehension, but most importantly, reading-confidence.

She accomplishes this by using many carefully chosen words in her books with the skills of young dyslexics in mind. The attention is put into using many:

-short and one syllable words

short vowels, digraphs and blends
• closed syllables words

high frequency sight words 
• short sentences. 
  
Cigdem believes that all children love to read. This is no different for children with dyslexia; they just need to find that right book for them. 

Transcript

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Neil Milliken: hello, and welcome to axschat i'm delighted to be joined today by Cigdem Knebel, she and I spoke a few weeks ago. She has a really interesting story so Cigdem, you are an engineer by by background, but you've ended up.

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Neil Milliken: immersed in the world of dyslexia and book publishing so so, can you tell us how you came to come on this journey and how you ended up creating, not just the books for young people with dyslexia, but essentially a whole publishing platform.

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Cigdem Knebel: thanks for having me neal so it was about five years ago, when my son was diagnosed with dyslexia and, until then, I really didn't know what dyslexia was and we were very lucky that we have really good resources around us, so we build up the structure around him and he started.

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Cigdem Knebel: Training program which is autumn gilligan base and he started really progressing quite fast early on, because before the.

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Cigdem Knebel: special training that news getting there was really not not improvements for about almost a year so as he started.

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Cigdem Knebel: Being able to read your short term versus short wobbles and you know closed syllables he read hop on pop and you said, I just want to read a chapter, but like my friends do.

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Cigdem Knebel: And I tried to find chapter books that felt like a big book that will be engaging story, but it was a lot easier to read than.

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Cigdem Knebel: A typical first second grader chapter book and I couldn't find any and I started writing for him and everybody was saying, like I said published and I said i'll do is when I retire.

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Cigdem Knebel: And then one day I realized that if I waited that long than it would be a whole generation or two generations depending on when I retired.

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Cigdem Knebel: would not have these books that I already wrote for my son, so I said i'm gonna start publishing and I looked at different avenues and.

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Cigdem Knebel: I went on my own, because it was I think it'd be very difficult, so a publishing house and agents and editors.

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Cigdem Knebel: What the quotable books are why I was writing down if they didn't really experience dyslexia and they're closed circle I didn't think they were going to understand, so I went on my own.

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Cigdem Knebel: I think in this will be a fun family project and the response I got was unbelievable and we said, this has to go to the next level and we became a publishing company.

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Cigdem Knebel: And now we also publish for other people in the neuro diversity area and other areas too, and we have, we have now several different platforms, but the platform with a recordable books is simple words books.

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Neil Milliken: yeah so.

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Neil Milliken: Just to explain a little bit about use the term about a chapter book now I think that's a particularly sort of American come so maybe you can explain, for our audience outside of the US what chapter books are, I think that would that'd be really helpful.

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Cigdem Knebel: Sure, so up a book that's more like a reader we call it here would be an early reader would have a big image on a page and maybe one or two sentences on it, it would be more like tat settled on that.

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Cigdem Knebel: frog jump from the log and those are the easiest level, and now you can go into other books that are maybe five six.

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Cigdem Knebel: sentences on the page maybe a paragraph and now you go into chapter books, where where the word count goes about you know 2000 3000 words.

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Cigdem Knebel: To you know if you look at Harry Potter books, that is, hundreds of pages that's a chapter book, meaning that the story has.

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Cigdem Knebel: A lot more context in it it's, not just for you know, reading the text there's a story behind it there's comprehension that comes with it and and it's divided into chapters where their series of events happening during the story.

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Debra Ruh: I think it's really interesting what you're doing, because what I think that we continue to do around the world is we continue.

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Debra Ruh: To take people, especially people with better neuro diverse and teach them like we train everybody else like we teach everybody else.

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Debra Ruh: And it's like well sorry that those teaching methods don't work for you Oh well, but we can't really keep doing that we've got to stop doing that and so i'm fascinated with.

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Debra Ruh: Your finding the need and then stepping forward to fulfill, a need which I think is a very important in need and now like you said you're in involved in other.

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Debra Ruh: neuro diversity groups, but how you know everything has changed so much when it comes to publishing books, I know that i'm an author of three books and the way we publish it is sometimes very confusing and.

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Debra Ruh: So I How does that impact what you're doing just the confusion that we're seeing in.

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Debra Ruh: Self publishing and you know, some people still think it works, the old way you find a publisher they're going to pay you a whole bunch of money.

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Debra Ruh: you're going to leisurely write your book and bring it back to them, then you're all gonna make a bunch of money yeah I don't think it works like that maybe except for Stephen king, these days, but.

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Debra Ruh: I was just curious how all of that works.

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Cigdem Knebel: OK, I can tell you about this for hours, so you know.

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Cigdem Knebel: If I started.

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Cigdem Knebel: Going too long, but So there are a couple of ways of publishing you can do the traditional publishing way where, if you are a famous celebrity.

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Cigdem Knebel: Or, if you have written a lot of books that has sold a significant amount when when I say i'm talking about 10s of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then you can actually not going to publishers door and say, I want to publish with you, if you're a first time author, or if you have other books that really hasn't sold.

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Cigdem Knebel: A significant number of books, then you have to get an agent and the agent is actually takes a Commission out of your Commission, and they are just the gateway between the authors and the big publishing houses, they they don't really market for you, they are just presenting your.

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Cigdem Knebel: You know your manuscript to the publisher similar to like a sports agent, or you know actors.

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Cigdem Knebel: Having agents were you know they just kind of make the connections and that's still the actors and the you know the sports people have to.

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Cigdem Knebel: show up for the auditions and try out some The self publishing side, which is the whole other end of the spectrum.

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Cigdem Knebel: You will be doing everything on your own you're writing a script and you find an editor if you have inspirations you find illustrator you'll get the cover down.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then you get someone to do the type sitting inside the whole book designs and if you're going kindle than or ebook, then you have to find someone who can convert it to evil.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then you have to understand the distribution, because you can have a wonderful book, but if you can distribute it and get it to the right people.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then it doesn't work, I mean Amazon is relatively straightforward, there are also other platforms.

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Cigdem Knebel: And, and you can also find a print house that prints for you and you can distribute if you have a website, you can sell on your website where you actually get to keep a bigger margin for the books.

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Cigdem Knebel: And then, what we do is kind of a hybrid because I realized that not everybody has OCD as I am.

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Cigdem Knebel: And we don't want to just go in and start learning everything on their own, especially they are you know someone in the neuro diversity fields, but they are not.

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Cigdem Knebel: writers, they don't to be an author to share their message and they don't want to invest the crazy amount of time I invested.

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Cigdem Knebel: figuring out how self publishing words works, then what we do is we actually.

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Cigdem Knebel: Work with authors, we do from A to B we offer ghost writing services if they just because sometimes most dyslexic do not want to write their books.

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Cigdem Knebel: But they are very articulate their wonderful storytellers we record our interviews we turn the content into book.

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Cigdem Knebel: We work with the authors they always on the creative content, which is a big problem, I think the traditional publishing companies where they want to sell more books, but we want to sell the book that actually will help someone.

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Cigdem Knebel: And we don't want to modify the message to make it work for a bigger audience, we wanted to work for those people who need to hear that message.

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Cigdem Knebel: And the author owns the copyrights and we work with them from you know, helping writing the book to making the book ready for printing and also the distribution.

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Cigdem Knebel: He called it a hybrid model because there's no in between, so we do charge for the pre press services we do take royalties at the are not, of course, as much as the.

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Cigdem Knebel: Traditional publishers do so, we find a hybrid way, which I done is what I wanted, when I was looking to publish my books similar to you know i'm writing these books, because I couldn't find.

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Cigdem Knebel: The books for my son and now i'm like printed a publishing company that publishes for other people, because I couldn't find that hybrid model when I was trying to publish my own books.

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Neil Milliken: And it's fascinating and you touched on a point where deborah's written three books i've written precisely zero.

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Neil Milliken: Because, whilst I love telling stories that that whole sort of inertia, that the dyslexia brings for sure is a drag it's one of those things and I, at some point i'll get around to it, I know I mean I.

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Neil Milliken: Could I like telling stories, but what you're doing seems like a.

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Neil Milliken: really great way of pulling these stories out and helping extract that knowledge and wisdom that these people have and sharing that with with the world so so that's that's really yeah sounds like a great service and and also you know doing it.

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Neil Milliken: On a sort of open book fairness type model that I think is also really, really important and admirable because I think they're quite often.

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Neil Milliken: You know, new artists, whether they be authors or painters or any ones that are doing creative work tend to be exploited by big business, I mean I long, long time ago, I had a record label and I put out music.

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Neil Milliken: and

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Neil Milliken: I was really concerned about how you structure contracts.

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Neil Milliken: Because actually I wanted my contracts to be profit share.

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Neil Milliken: Rather than because you hear the stories about these great rock band, and they go off on tour, and they buy, all of these cars and then they're bankrupt.

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Neil Milliken: Because they don't actually earn any money because the the companies have taken all the money, and I think it's all about.

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Neil Milliken: If you're in this realm right in the realm of accessibility or sustainability or or inclusion in general right I think you're in it, because you believe in fairness and equity so so the last thing you want to do is create a business that essentially farms, the people that that you're.

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Neil Milliken: you're benefiting from so it needs to be mutual mutually beneficial so congratulations on that I think it's really it's really wonderful and and yet you're building a Community around that that this whole.

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Neil Milliken: This whole idea of publishing and sharing my third it's it's a really super thing i'm really glad, by the way.

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Neil Milliken: i'm not sure if I mentioned at the beginning, but we were introduced by one of our recent access chat guests Joan bow and who was it was at Disney who told me, you must speak to.

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Neil Milliken: them because the work she's doing so I know deborah's going to comment, but I just wanted to say that I thought it was really important the way that you were building your business model.

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Right.

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Debra Ruh: yeah and i'll also say that, as an author, I have used a couple of different platforms self publishing platforms and I used a hybrid which i'm not going to mention because they were horrible.

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Debra Ruh: I would never ever recommend this company to anyone and they're one of the really big ones, and they made all these promises and they just did not deliver and they're going to market it.

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Debra Ruh: I happen to be good at marketing so i'm working at myself but it's very, very confusing it's very confusing, as you said, and I, and as.

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Debra Ruh: Neil was saying, I like that you're creating a community of people that buy your books, because people that are interested.

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Debra Ruh: In these topics, so the more you bring in the authors that are providing these topics, the bigger your Community grows, so that I think that.

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Debra Ruh: That is the way forward for publishers, but I also want to make the comment that, as somebody that I was told by Professor in college, that I was a terrible writer I should never right and it really stuck in my head.

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Debra Ruh: And i'm an author, but I believe that one of the best things that was ever created for authors or editors edit a good editor is worth their weight in gold and it's hard to find a good editor and I in this one model I use this hybrid model.

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Debra Ruh: I you know you could just the quality was so poor it was just so poor I was so disappointed in the quality and so I just want to say as an author I think something is what you're doing is so powerful, not only from building the Community building content that we need.

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Debra Ruh: And, but also supporting the authors, because, as you said, not everybody is comfortable about writing maybe a professor told them they suck at writing but, whatever our reasons are but there's so many different.

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Debra Ruh: pieces to this that I think a lot of people, you were saying it as you were.

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Debra Ruh: If you were saying you have to the type sat and i'm thinking of these phases, I was going through got to come up with the graphics for the book that.

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Debra Ruh: Oh, and don't forget to get the comments, where people say this is the best book ever written, you know the little reviews and stuff but.

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Debra Ruh: There is an awful lot of moving parts, do you find that sometimes these moving parts because there's so many are a little bit more confusing to neuro people with neuro diversity.

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Cigdem Knebel: not really because I think like they do, and I mean I I live in a visual world when it comes to processing information.

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Cigdem Knebel: And you know we create charts tables process maps and line mapping to use, you know, whatever is needed, we use.

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Cigdem Knebel: flow charts and it's really easy you just see like you know, this is, I like to be transparent right, the better the author understands the process, the easier it is for me to bring that book to life.

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Cigdem Knebel: For you know covers illustrations I have found a really good way I take photos of things and colors I like so if i'm, for example, like our last book.

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Cigdem Knebel: Is kings rink which is going to come in next couple of months and it the cover image is a broken glass rendering.

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Cigdem Knebel: And of standard stays stands out, so I found images of like i'm in a museum and I really liked the Stat I take a photo I see a broken glass, I take a photo I see and the ring is red.

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Cigdem Knebel: You know, red diamond on, and so I find a red and a cherry I said Oh, that is, the cherry color that's going to be the Rings color and I take a photo and I.

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Cigdem Knebel: put them all together and give it to the illustrator because then they can get into my head and when I give this to an author saying this is how I communicate my information.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then I go I can do that and I give my chicken scratch handwritten you know, like this is where it goes, this is the size of the you know the ring it's just comes together really easily.

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Cigdem Knebel: And I think I am really good at bringing their thoughts into a written format or.

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Cigdem Knebel: Or maybe explain it in the reverse re were explaining the information in a visual format, I feel like it's actually a lot easier to work with neuro diverse.

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Cigdem Knebel: Authors than alter that are extremely creative that are out there, you can just kind of pull them in.

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Cigdem Knebel: and also the authors, that we are working with are you know, business people.

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Cigdem Knebel: They are not writers, which is really easy because they understand the business side they understand what needs to be done via you know be educate them on different.

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Cigdem Knebel: types of paper different cover styles and understand you know, do you want a book that looks really good.

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Cigdem Knebel: Or do you want it to be, you know a lot more accessible, because you can bring it the cost down, and you can cut the price and.

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Cigdem Knebel: More people afford it, we give them all the options There are options, but we explain it to them in a very clear format, we give them spreadsheets on what the breakdowns would be and and they can make the decision really easily, I think.

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Cigdem Knebel: I think if you have like.

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Cigdem Knebel: A challenge like focusing or like making the next step and making decisions, the way you present information seems to be relatively straightforward I get really good feedback from.

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Cigdem Knebel: From the author saying we thought this was real difficult, and now we can see the way out, and I have also say we want to write the book ourselves and have a.

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Cigdem Knebel: really good editor maybe another ghost writer, but our content enhancer, which means that they write maybe half the book and then we take that into a full book format and.

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Cigdem Knebel: And for a note for those it's um I think it's still really intimidating to write, and you know I break it into how i've done it I said I write 500 words three times.

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Cigdem Knebel: Three times a week that's 1500 words and my books if if it's a you know if it's 9000 words you make the calculation now you have the books in.

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Cigdem Knebel: In a couple of months, and then they can kind of break it down there we go Okay, I never thought about it, or do you say, I want to write 20 minutes and everybody is triggered and motivated differently.

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Cigdem Knebel: Time doesn't work for me, I can be in front of the computer for 20 minutes and not get anything done it's very easy for me so for me, I say 500 versus my target.

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Cigdem Knebel: And, and there was also the emotional side right like when I was as a mom Newton Newton dyslexia, I want to understand what the future is like, for my son.

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Cigdem Knebel: Not just the school life, but what will happen when he is graduating from college and what are these options, who are these people like we always hear about all they're all these famous dyslexic people you know.

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Cigdem Knebel: Albert Einstein and Richard Branson and and maybe my son will be Richard Branson I don't think he's going to be Albert I should already know you know Tom cruise it's you hear all these people, but Okay, so I want to know successful people that I can relate to.

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Cigdem Knebel: And that's why i'm reaching out or you know these these authors are finding me because they have a story, and they have their successful.

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Cigdem Knebel: Maybe not Richard Branson but they're successful they're happy adults that actually found their strengths and build a business or a Community around them that.

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Cigdem Knebel: That brought them to like the shining star they became but you don't hear about them in the news and you don't need to, and I want to tell their stories, because I think that's what kids and parents need to hear.

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Cigdem Knebel: That there is this reality successful people that that's really out there in the grass, if you really believe in yourself and just to continue marching and doing the things that you need to.

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Antonio Santos: Do you are mentioning part of your methodology, in order to know for for for writing if we have people in our Community that okay now.

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Antonio Santos: Maybe it's time for me to start writing or no, I have a few ideas that I would like to put into practice what type of tools and methods are you using to make that.

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Antonio Santos: To make that happen, how are you capturing your your that information and then you are able to somehow find a method to make sure that you're not repeating yourself, or that the book ideas come into place.

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Cigdem Knebel: So i'll take the most extreme where the author does not want to even touch a pen or a keyboard.

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Cigdem Knebel: So what we do is you know we talk, maybe spend a couple of hours and maybe several different interviews trying to get to know the author what is their mission with this book what is their goal.

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Cigdem Knebel: So it's very different to create a book that they want to build a brand maybe they have a coaching.

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Cigdem Knebel: Company and they said, we want to build a brand and we want to be the experts in the field, or it's very different when they say you know i'm just going to honor my father, who was dyslexic and I want to tell.

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Cigdem Knebel: His story now he passed you passed away, but we know you know, here we have you know journals, so this is very different from you know one.

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Cigdem Knebel: extreme to the other, but if you say you know they have a story to tell we can create an outline.

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Cigdem Knebel: And we kind of create I call them buckets so, is it going to be your life story, do you want to tell it in a chronological order.

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Cigdem Knebel: Or do you want to tell an event that happened, maybe you know school was very difficult and we just focus on school, maybe they want to tell about how.

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Cigdem Knebel: Having dyslexia to work place was for down so we know we must be on the same topic we create different pockets and we go into interviewing them weekly or every other week, depending on what works for them and their schedule.

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Cigdem Knebel: And after about three four interviews, we have each book has failed quite a bit, but not totally Sammy say Okay, these are your buckets was the overarching theme.

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Cigdem Knebel: forward, because you want to make sure that there's a clear message that's going out to the.

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Cigdem Knebel: reader and with the first you know couple of interviews that we're doing, and as the buckets are getting filled they're also getting to know the author, who they are what's important for them.

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Cigdem Knebel: And we can say this is what i'm seeing in your life, these are the common patterns that made you successful, and these are the ones that you really struggle with you think that's accurate and usually they are because.

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Cigdem Knebel: you're looking at their life from an outside perspective and it's easier for us to see the patterns and sometimes you know themselves because they're living through it.

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Cigdem Knebel: And sometimes you know it's a they call like a healing session and they say they're going to pay us for therapy as well.

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Cigdem Knebel: And as we do as we kind of create that overarching theme than the rest is really easy as just you know, working with.

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Cigdem Knebel: them to get the details on you know when or what maybe what year things happened, or if they say Oh, there was like a photo on the mantel like describe the photo in detail, so we really get those fine nonsense.

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Cigdem Knebel: And then we can create the book, because we have enough material, and they would have to read and if they don't want to read, they can do text to speech and listen to the book make comments, where they need to.

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Cigdem Knebel: And and it's after that is really just the technical process that's Gospel pre press on publishing the book, because once the manuscript is almost there I think on on is all technical that's that they don't even have to worry about.

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Cigdem Knebel: and have a look at you know, so we look at a competition out there, we guide them through you know what pricing could be unless you have that information now you know the size of the book and.

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Cigdem Knebel: You know before cover day you know I would encourage them to go to a library or a bookstore and get a feel of the books and you know what size, they like what they think would be.

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Cigdem Knebel: would be the goods font for them and they don't have to make any of those decisions we you know we give them the option, and I would say, a Casa de or their you know they know what they want and half the time they say you know do what you think is best you're the expert.

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So.

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Neil Milliken: The other thing that you and I talked about when we talk prior to this conversation.

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Neil Milliken: Was was about the that you also had the sort of methodology for helping simplify the language, because as an engineer, this was something that.

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Neil Milliken: That was important to help with comprehension so so, can you tell us a little bit about that as well, because I think that the key to the engagement of these young people is the fact that that you're.

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Neil Milliken: Covering complex topics and things that are adult and attractive to them, but in language that they can that they can decipher and quite often we have these.

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Neil Milliken: This tendency to want to write stuff that is overly complex just to convey that we're clever.

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Neil Milliken: You know so so we overcomplicate the language and then through that over complication of language, we were creating barriers to people so so you spend quite a lot of time working on how to the methodology behind this.

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Cigdem Knebel: So there are two different sides of the the publishing business one is simple verse books, which are the quotable books that are.

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Cigdem Knebel: Very strict on the language and the words that are used and the other one is what we've been talking about where we know we're writing for other authors where they're not recordable books.

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Cigdem Knebel: There, but they're talking about the story and the neuro diverse so first i'll talk about the author so because they understand the need for a simplified takes a lot more than a lot of other authors out there.

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Cigdem Knebel: You know, faster the book is written, I do say, do you want me to kind of comb this through and make some of the words simpler where it applies without really taking away from the story.

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Cigdem Knebel: And the easiest example I give is that in many places, you can say as well, instead of two, which is to.

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Cigdem Knebel: As well you know they're closed syllables to with an open syllable right and and it's it's a wall team so it's it's harder for a dyslexic to lead to that as well.

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Cigdem Knebel: So these are small things that we can kind of catch really easily because we've been doing it for so long.

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Cigdem Knebel: And I never had a single author That said, I don't want to go down to keep my book.

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Cigdem Knebel: At that level and they always say yes, I rather about this a little bit easier to read without live in losing the context and the meeting under the quotable books, on the other hand, when also comes and say they want to write the quotable books, we are extremely strict.

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Cigdem Knebel: We have we have requirements on you know they you know, depending on the level if they're already quotable they have to be single.

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Cigdem Knebel: single syllable short wobbles and close.

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Cigdem Knebel: And mostly like almost all closed, so those as well, and little bit about levels, you know we go into you know a lot more.

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Cigdem Knebel: Like more more syllable words and you know we have blends we have diagrams that we allow and I don't know if your viewers will know what they are, but.

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Cigdem Knebel: They are the rules that are dyslexic reader would learn early on in the first portion of their language training so and about levels would be like.

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Cigdem Knebel: Control are maybe like a word like car which everybody thinks it's really easy, which is not easy for dyslexic child to read.

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Cigdem Knebel: So, like we don't use the word car in our books or it could be like star or it could be corn without control ours.

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Cigdem Knebel: burn would be another one for control are we almost never use open or a silent ease will be like bake take make.

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Cigdem Knebel: So i'm writing a book without using the work taken make is quite difficult we don't use double wobbles that some come together, like about.

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Cigdem Knebel: Or at their collect global teams like about because all and you are together, they are difficult to read as well we don't use silent constants like it would be.

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Cigdem Knebel: No, the case silence.

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Cigdem Knebel: So you know, once you say you know these are the words that we can't use most people say thank you very much.

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Cigdem Knebel: And they say, this is not for them and and that's Okay, too, you know, this is not there's no right or wrong, this is just a hobby right they can write different stories for different readers but.

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Cigdem Knebel: We are very strict when it comes to the decoder double books what words can be used and and I think that's where my engineering background really comes in handy.

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Cigdem Knebel: Because I look at it as a process rather than a story and I don't just sit down and say of the muse came, and this is how the story will go the story changes very tester if I hit a wall where it's not going to be the quotable.

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Cigdem Knebel: So, for example, if it's going to be soccer which is like a football in and Europe.

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Cigdem Knebel: You can't have like a you know it's very difficult to write a story about soccer or football, where you need a coach you need a field, you need a game.

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Cigdem Knebel: You know it doesn't really come together, but a tennis world, because then your tennis racket and a net and you know, then you can say Okay, maybe you know the sport has to change here, and you know you change the sport from.

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Cigdem Knebel: soccer or football or tennis than the story really changes because the characters are you know doing very different activities but i'm not saying i'm not attached to the story, I need to get this story decoder well.

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Cigdem Knebel: I don't know if i'm confusing.

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Neil Milliken: I think it's really I think it's really important to essentially.

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Neil Milliken: you're wanting to maintain interest you're you're agnostic about essentially the subject matter, so long as it's interesting.

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Neil Milliken: And simultaneously comprehensible and or, as you say decoded so that so that people can can understand that content and read it and.

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Neil Milliken: and feel successful because that was the driver really wasn't it was it was the giving your your son and others like the ability to take content understand it feel engaged.

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Neil Milliken: and feel adults, you know feel like a young adult rather than feeling and infantilized by the what was available, I think this is this is, you know really important bit of work that has to be done to engage learners.

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Cigdem Knebel: And I feel like the need for my books are in between, I always say like reading learning to read is like going to the gym for a workout.

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Cigdem Knebel: Like if you go to the gym which you know, I think.

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Cigdem Knebel: I you know pick up the weights and they're the you know the one pound pink ones and i'll go this is great, this is so easy, and I can do this, all day but I don't want to get stronger.

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Cigdem Knebel: or in another extreme I can go and say i'm going to start with the bench press with hundred pounds.

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Cigdem Knebel: Then I can get injured discouraged because i'm not going to be able to even move a little bit and things like that, so if you give them if you get these readers really babyish books.

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Cigdem Knebel: they're not going to really practice their fluency they're not going to practice their comprehension and they're not really going to feel like they're building the reading confidence, which is really important.

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Cigdem Knebel: For dyslexic reader, but if you give them a really hard book where you know they say Oh, if the book has about five words on a page that the kids can tweet us the right book is what I was told when my son was growing up.

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Cigdem Knebel: And I can tell you, with my son if there were five words on a page that he couldn't read at all, that means there are a lot more words that is struggling with.

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Cigdem Knebel: is going to be in tears on the first page and will never pick up that book so that was my goal that they first of all, had a book that they.

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Cigdem Knebel: Once they picked up, they said Oh, I can do this on their own, you know, maybe you know you force them to pick up the first book.

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Cigdem Knebel: And once they read a couple of pages that I can I can do this, which means their confidence is growing.

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Cigdem Knebel: And and they're willing to try and once they're trying then they're practicing and your fluency is growing, the flute fluency only will improve if you practice right, you can you can just practice, these words in class or you know the Tutoring session.

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Cigdem Knebel: 45 minutes to an hour a day and expect that your fluency will flourish, you have to really do this in a regular and repeated format.

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Cigdem Knebel: And to do that, you have to have some fun topics you can't just give them very dry material.

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Cigdem Knebel: or babyish materials, because they will not want to pick those up you want them to you I want them to be encouraged to pick up that book.

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Cigdem Knebel: and say Oh, I can read this then they're practicing their fluency without.

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Cigdem Knebel: It being a chore and as a practice fluency than their comprehension is growing, because now, they are known learning new vocabulary and they're also.

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Cigdem Knebel: Making the desk now understanding the characters and understanding why some things are happening there on Sunday plot the scenery.

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Cigdem Knebel: And if you think about it really the comprehension is the goal of reading right, I mean you know.

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Cigdem Knebel: I used to be a very fast reader but my comprehension is always very weak and it doesn't matter how fast, I read if i'm not understanding the material it's just a waste of time.

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Cigdem Knebel: So I rather just like now like, as an adult I now read slower, but when i'm done, I actually understand what I read.

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Cigdem Knebel: And and that's really the goal the comprehension if you if you can connect these three things which is the fluency comprehension and the reading confidence early on, for a dyslexic radar and I think that's you know, then I think my job is done as a publisher and and also.

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Neil Milliken: yeah Thank you and I really as someone embedded in this active Community for the last 20 years that engagement and that enthusiasm to learn is really.

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Neil Milliken: A paramount importance, so thank you for the work you're doing I also need to say thank you to Barclays access my clear text or micro link for helping keep us on air all this time.

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Neil Milliken: and keeping us caption keeping us accessible i'm really looking forward to you joining us on social media on Twitter.

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Neil Milliken: And in continuing the conversation, so thank you very much.

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Cigdem Knebel: Thank you so much.