Simbi-Oral Reading through a Global Library with Adrienne Gear

I’m always on the hunt for new and exciting ways to help my students become successful readers (I bet you are too!)  Luckily when it comes to literacy, there are a lot of different approaches you can take. And on today’s episode, I’d love to share one more with you- a platform called Simbi. 

Simbi is an online platform that offers a variety of interactive content specifically designed to help children learn to read. With Simbi, your child will have access to stories, games, and activities that’s intended to keep them engaged and excited about learning.

Never heard of it? Not to worry! Adrienne Gear, Canadian teacher, author and representative of Simbi is here to give us the scoop. 

So if you’re looking for a new and engaging way to support your child’s literacy skills, check out this episode to learn more about Simbi.

Hanna: (00:03)

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of, My Literacy Space podcast. Today, I am talking with Canadian educator from BC and author Adrienne Gear. Welcome, Adrienne.

Adrienne: (00:15)

Thank you. It's amazing to be here. Thanks for having me.

Hanna: (00:19)

Today we're going to talk about an amazing website. It's a platform that produces really great books that children can narrate. They can follow along with the book. They can narrate it and it goes globally. Adrienne, can you tell me a little bit about the platform Simbi?

Adrienne: (00:36)

Sure. So Simbi is a reading platform. There are a lot of reading platforms out there to choose from. It is a library of diverse books children can choose from. What I love about Simbi is what you have mentioned. This notion of these options of bimodal reading. That means that when a student chooses one of the books, they have a choice to either listen to someone narrate the book while they're following along with the words, or they can choose to narrate the book, which is basically a read aloud, or they can choose to read silently. What I love about these options, is for children who might be struggling a little bit with text, with following along, with listening and with really decoding, having the option of listening to someone else read and following along with the words. And of course, the platform offers tracking.

Adrienne: (01:44)

A highlighter comes along with the program and tracks the words for them. Listening to a model reader first, allows them to get to know the fluency and the phrasing, then they can choose the same book, but then practice reading aloud. So, I love these options.  I also love the fact that you mentioned that Simbi is connected to this global literacy approach. What happens is if a student or if a reader chooses to, after they narrate the book, they can submit their voice into what's called the Simbi Global Library.  Once the narration has been approved, that becomes a voice that other people around the world can listen to. So, what I love about this approach is that it's very motivational for children. They can read a book knowing that they're helping others. That piece about Simbi really sets it apart for me, which is why I became so interested in working with this platform.

Hanna: (03:03)

So, I've been using it for a little bit now. Some of the things that my students are saying is that they really like recording their voice. They like to hear themselves back. And it really is great for even a bit of a self-reflection in some respects where I can say, “Oh, what did you like about page five?” “What did you notice when you read the poem by Ken Nesbett?” or something like that.  I love that you said diverse. There are many different genres, fiction, nonfiction, poetry and bigger pieces of writing as well. I love that piece. They really enjoyed hearing their voices back. And to know that they can submit it so that someone else could hear them reading, just seeing the pride on their face, wow. Somebody in another country might be reading this book. So, what's the history of Simbi and that Global Library. I love the concept of a global library. My biggest thing is that I really want to get as many books as possible into the hands of kids.  This is a digital wave.  What kind of countries can access this? What is the story behind Simbi?

Adrienne: (04:09)

Well, it is global. It is around the world and people around the world are using it. Something that you touched on about how excited kids get when they think that they are helping people around the world. Every week, the reader receives what's called a Simbi Impact Report. It's a little impact report that comes up onto their platform. They get an email and it's got a map of the world; it’s got a list of all the countries and how many people listen to their story.  It is so motivating; kids love getting that impact report. They get super excited and something else I just want to touch on that you mentioned that is also exciting, is the factor of listening to your own voice. There are so many kids who've never heard themselves read, and the fact that you can listen back and then rerecord that page if you feel like you want to, that's a good thing. The area of reading I feel like that really supports is fluency. When we talk about fluency with kids, we talk about speed, punctuation, phrasing and intonation. Those four aspects of that read aloud. It's hard for kids to understand fluency when they are reading silently because they don't hear themselves. So that area is something I feel like that the listen back feature is really supporting.

Hanna: (05:59)

I was going to jump in there about the fluency thing too.  I attended a webinar all about fluency and they were talking about that. Yes, we do always talk about speed and things like that. She also said other things that we need to be focusing on- accuracy and building automaticity. And then she really talked about procity. I love that you said the intonation and the accuracy. Sometimes as children are reading, they don't catch that they made an error. They just feel that the speed factor is all we care about. They gave great statistics about this perfect little window of the speed and correct words per minute. And it was really a fascinating webinar to listen to. Accuracy is so important.

Hanna: (06:48)

And I am always pointing out what is wrong, this gives a different way of them listening in. Refollowing along as the words are highlighted to think “Oh, oops. I should have said”. And I'm like, “Yes. So, what do we notice about that word? And let's look at every little piece of it as we're decoding it”. I think there are lots of those pieces helping them be more in tune with, did they read it accurately?  Then listen to it. Are they reading like a robot? Or did they have some nice scooping and phrasing? It's a good way instead of me just seeming like I'm coming across as correcting.  They can really do a lot of self-reflection by listening back to themselves as a reader.

Adrienne: (07:32)

Then also having the access to another narrator reading that same book.  If they're struggling, let's go back and listen to how this person reads it. See if you can. That model is always there for them.

Hanna: (07:50)

Exactly. So, the history of Simbi. What's the story behind it?

Adrienne: (07:56)

The story behind it is fascinating. Aaron Friedland is one of the co-founders of Simbi.  When he was an elementary student, he struggled with reading, labeled as dyslexic. His parents told him that he really will probably never go to university and he's really going to always need to be working on his reading skills. He did not have a positive approach or positive outlook on himself as a reader. His reading identity was very low. In grade five, he had a teacher, his teachers had tried many things, not that they failed him, but he just never found a method that worked for him. When he was in grade five, a teacher offered him the option of listening to a story while he read the words. And he said, and I remember him telling me this story, he said it was like this complete epiphany. As a child with dyslexia, he struggled with tracking.

Adrienne: (09:20)   

All the words were jumbled on the page when he read. Suddenly, when he had that voice in his head, reading the words to him, it's different than an audiobook. An audiobook, you're listening to the story, you don't have the text in front of you. So having those words in front, while he read along, was this amazing thing for him. It just transformed him as a reader. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met. He did his master's on that exact question: is reading along to a voice while looking at the text, going to increase readability, reading success, reading proficiency. He was working in Uganda at the time. he did this study in a Ugandan refugee camp and saw dramatic results in the fluency and the accuracy of readers when they read along.

Adrienne: (10:37)

So, that is how Simbi started. It came out of his master's thesis. It came out of his interest in helping kids around the world who may not have access. See, one of the things he was doing in Uganda was kids don't have access to books. They don't have access to technology, iPads or anything like that. He started to work on this foundation that created solar panels, solar-powered schools, little schools built out of shipping crates, amazingly enough. It's just, that the story is just so incredible, but that's the Simbi foundation. So that's connected. The Simbi platform is what is the drive of the Simbi foundation. So, we as a reading platform are all about the read more books more often; that's the model.  The other piece is read for good. It's got those two really important elements that sustain the Simbi kind of story, but there's always a story.

Adrienne: (11:59)

There's always a story behind something, but I just love that he took his challenges of his little reading life as a young elementary student and turned them into something so powerful and profound. He wants to help people around the world learn to read. Just that motivation and trying to make reading meaningful. So, we are improving our reading skills through these bimodal methods, but then we are also turning it into a meaningful act of global citizenship. I love it for both things.  But I think more and more in schools and classrooms, we are trying to help our students be global citizens. It's hard for an eight-year-old to change the world. Here is an opportunity for them to do that independently while they're improving their reading skills.

Hanna: (13:10)

Exactly.

Adrienne: (13:11)

Kind of a win-win

Hanna: (13:14)

It totally is. So how do you find the platform or how do they access it and what are some of the benefits that you are hearing?  I can speak about my students or what I am really loving about it or speaking with other educators of just where we are not always just assigning something so they feel like this is homework, but this connection of, and I like that because it does feel like a connection with somebody else who's really listening in who's “Oh, I'm going to read a story for somebody and people all over the world are listening to this story”, but it also gives us as educators or you know, other specialists ideas on what we can do. If they're reading at home, I want to listen in and pick some of those pieces up well that I can support the next time. So how do you find that families and educators are finding the platform and using it?

Adrienne: (14:17)

So, finding it is easy at Simbi.io. You just go onto the site; you can sign up for free. We have a two-week free trial for educators to try. They set up a class. They go in, and they set up their class. A couple of features that I'll just point out, I call them teacher features, that are great for the teachers- this whole notion of the listen in. You set your students up, there’s a class, you set your class up, you can group them. You can create groups within your class, which students you would likely group, according to the guided reading group you were using. Then you can go in and assign them books. But the great piece to me and what teachers I'm hearing are really appreciating is the fact that they can go into their class groups.

Adrienne: (15:22)

If the child has narrated because remember it's optional what you do as the reader, but a teacher can assign a book to be narrated. They can ask the students specifically to do one of those things. The teacher then can go back in and listen. And to me, this is golden because as a classroom teacher, we all know it's challenging sometimes to have the time to bring students to your desk, while you've got 26 other kids, and listen to them read. This gives you the opportunity to listen in, to pay attention to their fluency, their coding skills, all those things that we're looking for. There is a record button that you can go and give feedback to the child. You can leave them a little positive message, like “Great reading!”, or “Try to work on your speed” or whatever message you want. The notion that you can listen in the comfort of your own home, on your own time, with your device. You can just listen in to children read. I think that is a huge, huge bonus. It helps teachers be more responsive. To what the students need, as opposed to just kind of random reading lessons.  It's targeted instruction it promotes that targeted instruction. 

Hanna: (16:58)

One of the features that I've liked is when you pop up, I'll see your little face pop up in the bottom corner. That there is an extra piece for educators to use, whether it's a little mini-lesson or some comprehension pieces to it. That's always helpful too, because when I'm targeting something, sometimes there might be a piece that I've missed out on and to have somebody else handy right there. I forget, what are they called when they, when your little face pops up? Little tips or something that.

Adrienne: (17:26)

Yeah, gear tips or something.

Hanna: (17:31)

Super helpful.

Adrienne: (17:32)

Yes. Those are meant to give educators some ideas of what to do when they're reading. The other thing that I like too, is that we are trying to support the comprehension piece as well as the decoding piece.  There are options then for teachers to possibly if you're assigning something to your group, you could say, after you read the story, make a connection in the tell me. The students have this option when they finish reading to record something. They could record retell, they could record a question they had, they could retell a connection.  I love that. It's not just focusing on the decoding, which is important and everything that we are trying to bring that holistic.

Hanna: (18:29)

Well, our whole goal of reading is understanding what you just read. Right? Our goal is comprehension. So, you're right. The decoding piece is critical. It's leading into that fluency because we're looking for automaticity and accuracy and that will all fall into the comprehension. We still must be explicit and systematic about the way we're teaching that. Because sometimes kids, when you say, “Can you retell what happened?” It's usually when I say, “Can you summarize that?” They retell the whole thing and I'll say, “Okay, well that's a retelling, but it's not a summary of the most important part.” So even teaching them scaffolding.  Some of the ways that we can scaffold that.  I love that feature, that records an answer or a little piece.

Hanna: (19:23)

That is a way, I think, it's also great because a lot of kids may even struggle with writing something. So, to be able to give a verbal answer back still shows that they have understanding. Maybe that comprehension piece was not there because the background knowledge was weak or because the vocabulary- they didn’t quite understand that. One of the other features I love is the poetry. It really helps with fluency for kids, the rhythm and the rhyme and the repetition of phrases. They are nice and short. So, it's not pages and pages of text. It's not super overwhelming and Ken Nesbitt, there are so many of his poems on there and they're hilarious.

Adrienne: (20:15)

And he's narrated them all for us.  So, it's his voice.  Reading the poems, and I'm so glad you brought up poetry, because I just finished a book about poetry. About reading and writing poetry, and how poetry is a full experience. It's auditory, cognitive, emotional and visual. All those four things. What is so incredible about a poem is how it pulls in all the aspects of reading. Like you mentioned, the rhyme, the rhythm, the cadence, and the fact that very few poems come with big pictures. They invite visualization and inferences, and Ken's poems are fantastic. And like you said, they're short.

Hanna: (21:12)

And they're nice and funny.

Adrienne: (21:14)

They're hilarious.

Hanna: (21:15)

Yeah. They're hilarious. But you can often just type in a topic and get a few things like that just quickly. I think that those are some features that I have really enjoyed as well. Are there any features that you know of that are coming up that will enhance the sort of experience for kids? I know that one of the tabs is about your journey. You can plot along.

Adrienne: (21:41)

Yeah. So, the product team is, has been working nonstop on creating these incredible, it's like gamification approach, which kids are used to. That's what they know. And so why not go with that? And I must be honest, at the beginning of the whole shift to gamification, I'm like, oh, I don't know, because I don't like giving prizes for reading. And I never gave pizza prizes for reading and reading logs, and all that. It almost makes me cringe. Reading is the prize. We've got to - like my pulse is on the reading and the education part of Simbi, but their pulse is on what kids are motivated by. They know they're motivated by the gamification. So Simbi has these journeys and their worlds and, each user, when they go into a world, that's when they're going along these nodes where they are assigned the books.

Adrienne: (23:01)

So, as they read books, they're going through and they're earning badges. The badges are like you said, what features are coming. That's the exciting feature that's just in the works. If you read a certain, for example, the poetry badge, you read 10 poems and you earn your poetry badge, you read 10 nonfiction books about animals, you get your science badge. Like there's all these sorts of, it's all motivation. And it's all working towards moving through these worlds. There's also these little Simbians which are these little characters, and they play a role in how you move through the world and how you can earn Simbians. The team is made up, I'm just talking about the Simbi team- why it works. Erin and Alex, the other founder, they're finding the people who know their stuff. I am the least tech person you could ever meet, but I know a lot about teaching reading. That's what I'm putting into it, but they have some incredible people on the team that are building the platform. It's incredible.  I've been working with them since the very beginning to see how far they've come in such a short time.

Adrienne: (24:45)

I'm busy. I have my own company. Like you, we're working with Students and teachers but I really believed in them,  I just believed in the cause. And so that's why I'm excited to be talking to you about it. And I want people, to try it.

Hanna: (25:04)

Absolutely. In closing, if you could tell me, what are the top three benefits that you think come from reading aloud? We talked about the global piece, but also sort of from a reading standpoint, literacy speaking, what are the top three benefits of encouraging kids to read out loud?  I'm going to share one of mine first, one of the things that a lot of my students will say is “I don't like reading out loud because I make mistakes.”  I'll say to them, “I understand that. It makes you vulnerable to read out loud because you are going to stumble through some words. Guess what? Even I do as an adult, because sometimes I'm talking too fast or I'm not tracking and I get ahead of myself or read the next line and skip something, but we know that whatever errors we're making out loud, we're really making up here in our brains”.

Hanna: (25:56)

“That those things of whether we're adding a sound in or omitting a sound or transposing letters in the word, those are happening. I need to hear you reading out loud. And when you hear yourself reading out loud, you'll often catch a mistake that you have made, and you will self-correct. This will always make you a better reader because we are looking for that automaticity and accuracy.” So that to me would be one of my benefit things that I encourage my kids about reading aloud. What would you say maybe your top two or three would be?

Adrienne: (26:30)

In connection to something you said that connects them to Simbi is reading aloud in front of people versus reading aloud by yourself. When you're reading aloud in front of people or even just one-to-one or in a group, there's this something interesting that happens in children's brains, their comprehension turns off. When they're reading out loud in front of people, they are so focused on getting it right that they are not monitoring their comprehension.  I'm talking more about the emerging and developing readers, not necessarily your proficient ones. The fact that you can read aloud, but no one else is listening except you I think can have a huge benefit it because it's going to give them confidence. And I think what happens when kids are struggling with their code is that they lose confidence, and they say I can't read.

Adrienne: (27:37)

What I always say to kids is maybe you can't decode right now. But reading is two things. It's what I call book reading and brain reading. And when you're book reading, you're focusing on the code, but the brain reading is what does this mean? And I think having the ability to read aloud and in private is going to increase that confidence, which then in leads to increased comprehension. I have memories of sitting around as a child, at a table in like my grade two class with the tape recorder and all those pros and the big headphones. And we all had the same book and we listened to the thing and there was a little chime, and then we all turn the pages at the same time.

Hanna: (28:29)

You will know it's time to turn the page. When you hear the bells chime like this.

Adrienne: (28:34)

There was something very comforting about that. And there was something that brought some sense of security. I was a pretty good reader. I loved to read. But when I look back on that, I'm not going to tell you how many years ago it was- a long time ago. Why are we still doing that? Why are we still having kids follow along? Why did that grade five teachers give that to Erin, to say try this because it works. If we want our kids to feel confident and gain the competence, that piece of reading allowed with the words being highlighted, there was no tinker bell highlighting the words for me when we were already, but now with all the tech advances, having that track and listening to someone read while you are and realizing I can do this.  There's just something. I think that whole piece is an important one. Give kids, the words while someone is reading to them.  I also remember loving when my grade six teacher read a novel to the class.  It was like, I found the book in the library and wanted to follow along. What is it about that? It's the comfort.

Hanna: (30:17)

The connection. It's a way to connect.  I loved chatting with you. We could probably chat for a very long time.

Adrienne: (30:27)

I'm so excited about it.

Hanna: (30:28)

I want to thank you so much for joining us today have a great day. We will be putting all the notes in the show notes to be able to connect with you on different platforms and the links so that people can find Simbi. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Adrienne: (30:42)

Fantastic. Hannah. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

Hanna: (30:47)

Thank you.

Adrienne: (30:48)

Thanks, bye.