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Pete Hall: Welcome to the Transformative Principal.
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I am so excited to share this interview from ISTE 2026 with you.
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Really fascinating things happening there.
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Lots of great people, and over the course of the next couple weeks, you're gonna hear some of these great interviews.
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Hope you enjoy, and thanks for listening to Transformative Principal
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Interview 7 - Jethro: All right.
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We're here with Erin Bailey at, ISTE ASCD twenty twenty-six.
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Oh, geez.
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Erin is, Tell us who you are and, what you do with Reading Is Fundamental.
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Erin Bailey: Yeah.
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So I am the vice president of literacy programs and research at Reading Is Fundamental.
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That's a mouthful.
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what I like to say now is that my platform is that I am a educator turned researcher turned parent, and I draw from all those experiences to inform
what we do at Reading Is Fundamental, which is build programs around book ownership, access, and choice, and then measure the efficacy of those
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Interview 7 - Jethro: Yeah.
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Excellent.
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And, you have a great podcast called Reading Inspires that you host, and you do a great job with- Thank you … and it's fun.
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but as we were talking yesterday, you mentioned that there are some new developments at RIF that are exciting.
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Yes.
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So let's talk a little bit about those
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Erin Bailey: those.
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So I'll start with the tech development, and that is Skybrary, which you can think of as a library in the sky.
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Skybrary.
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It is an e-book app for ages three through nine.
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On the app, you have 1,000 beautiful children's picture books with read-to-me narration.
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There's a text highlighting feature, which is great for fluency and word recognition.
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And then what's very exciting is that earlier this year, we launched a free version.
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So now on Skybrary, if you download the app, you can get 100 free books.
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Why 100 free books?
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there's a study, Evans et al., 2012-
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Interview 7 - Jethro: you don't have to cite on podcasts,
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Erin Bailey: you
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I, I think in citations- Yeah … Jethro, you know I do But I will give you the link in case you to Yeah link it But this study found that there is a strong correlation between books
in the home and a not just reading achievement but academic attainment And so the measure there was 100 books in the home So what we've done essentially is put 100 books in every home
in America As long as you have an a device which most households do you can get access to 100 free children's books and they are very high quality so yeah that's why that And Yeah
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We're very proud of it It's won Apple's app of the day in 19 countries and counting I'd like to think So we you know it's a For me it's a
great success story because we are a nonprofit We have a very small digital team but we took the time and we designed a very powerful app
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Interview 7 - Jethro: which is great because books is ideal the physical books Mmhmm But if you don't have that there's still power in having the digital books
and that's and if that's what the access is then that's great along those lines there there's also the acquisition of August House Publishing So tell us about
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that
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Erin Bailey: So also exciting for 2026 is that RIF acquired August House Publishing August House has around 185 titles About 65 of those are children's picture books The others are teacher resource books for storytelling we have scary stories which are
great for middle readers And August House as a publisher is focused on oral storytelling so these are stories that have been passed down for generation hundreds thousands of years some of them And so we believe if these stories have survived all of that time
they're worth protecting and we want to get more of these stories into the hands of children So you can see why acquiring publishing arm was a perfect for Reading is Fundamental because we're about book access and now we can give more access to books for
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Interview 7 - Jethro: Yeah Well and when you told me yesterday I was like Finally you have Right a legitimate physical publishing arm in addition to the digital
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publishing
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Erin Bailey: both right now Yeah My husband always would joke with me too He's like Why don't you guys publish your own book And I would like That's crazy Like
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Interview 7 - Jethro: we
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That's
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Like
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Erin Bailey: we That's crazy Like We could never And then it's like Wait why wouldn't we if this opportunity for us Yeah So we're super excited
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Interview 7 - Jethro: Yeah That's great The only challenge is because you are a nonprofit and you do so much to give books you still need to have income and be able to m support giving away books so you gotta find ways ensure
Yeah that you've
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got You can't just give away all the August House books right Yeah Absolutely And you find ways to to generate revenue still and all that and make it so that you can afford to give away as many books as you can
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Erin Bailey: Yeah absolutely So because we're a nonprofit we have to steward these dollars that come in The great thing both Skybury a and August House since we are a nonprofit any proceeds that we do make from Skybury subscriptions or August House books that
we sell that just goes right back into what we are doing at Reading is Fundamental And then same like with the books we have authors and illustrators that we want to show our support to and they make royalties off of these books Okay So yes we're not just
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printing and
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giving away all of these August House books We have to sell some as well
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Interview 7 - Jethro: That's right tell us a little bit about Reading Inspires the podcast and what that looks like and how you're feeling about it now after you've been doing it how long
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Erin Bailey: Like
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Interview 7 - Jethro: eight months Eight months Okay
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Erin Bailey: well
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thank you Jethro
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you produce Reading Inspires I think so to anybody who's thinking about doing a podcast there's a lot more that goes into than what you would probably think I think
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like
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TV shows that podcast is just actually what you and I are doing right now Just sitting down and talking but there are about six people that work on Inspires I'm one part of it I host it I prep for the shows
by I recruit some of the guests I if they've published a book I read their book I prepare the questions for them but then there's a whole editing team and there's a whole marketing team So people who People
do podcasts on their own but it's a lot more work than probably what many people think So that's how I'm feeling after eight months But really it's a dream come true I think we started talking about it
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like two ago so that's another thing if, if anyone's looking to get into podcasting is it's, it's a marathon not
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Interview 7 - Jethro: that's right.
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That's, that's what I tell people all the time is that this can't be a let's, let's try it for three months and see how it goes.
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It needs to be a point of view and a, a specific opinion that you have that you're willing to commit to, because it's really about the thought leadership,
establishing yourself as, as an authority on this idea and, and being the one that people should go to for whatever it is that you're talking about.
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and that's where… That's why
it was such a good idea for Riff because you guys are already there.
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And this just gives you more opportunity to share the great things you're doing, bring on people who, who can add to your authority, and, give you, give value to people who want to know more about all the things that you guys talk
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Erin Bailey: about.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think I mentioned earlier, I'm coming from a perspective of an educator, a researcher, and a parent.
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And so we have guests that touch on all of those- topics.
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And the audience is all-- You know, we have educators, librarians, researchers, community support, funders, volunteers.
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Reading Inspires, it's not just for educators.
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And th- there are wonderful podcasts out there that just talk about the science of reading and that are educator-oriented.
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this one's more… We do have science of reading, but it's more about what I call the joy of reading.
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So bringing everyone together to create a full, journey for a child.
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And we need both, right?
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We need podcasts that are focused for educators, and we need podcasts that are for everyone about That,
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Interview 7 - Jethro: that help people see that reading sh- really should be joyful, and it is.
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And I was reading, I've been reading an author, Chad Zunker, these thriller type, lawyer type, books.
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It, when I get into these books, I just, I always read them before I go to bed, and I just cannot wait to get to bed and start reading because I love to escape into that world.
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and I love my life, but it's really cool to just be immersed in some other world, and that is so much fun, and
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it's,
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it's something that I can't replicate anywhere else except when I'm reading.
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And so, like, I want every person to feel that and, and be able to experience it, and a lot of people do.
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But there's also a lot of people who don't find joy in it, where it's hard and it's difficult, and they don't understand what the point is and, and maybe they can't visualize or they could visualize too much.
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And so, like, making it so that they can find joy in reading, that, that's what I love about RIF's purpose and why I love that you're doing the podcast about it
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Erin Bailey: Thanks, Jethro.
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Yeah, we-- it was a process to even get to what role do we play in child's reading journey because books, choice in books, and access to books, that's all, that's our foundation.
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We offer a lot of things right now, like teacher professional development, webinars.
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We have a whole suite of free resources for educators, and families that they can use with their students.
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So we do provide support around the books, but we also wanted to distinguish ourselves that true to our mission is really about that joy piece.
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Yeah.
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So if it's not joyful, we are not going to be involved in it.
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Interview 7 - Jethro: Yeah.
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I love that, and it's such a good stance to take that's what it's about.
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And, and that, to me, frees you to do whatever brings joy and limits you from doing anything that you're like, "Eh, this doesn't fit our mission." And, and that's, that's great to have that point of view.
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Where can people learn more about Reading Is Fundamental and listen to your podcast and all that?
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Erin Bailey: you can find at rif.org, and under rif.org, we have a blog and media section, and you can find all the latest episodes as well as our YouTube channel.
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You can watch the videos of the podcast episodes as well.
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Interview 7 - Jethro: Excellent.
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Very good.
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Thank you, Erin, for being here.
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Appreciate it.