Teachers and educators always impress me. It is truly a calling and really good ones have the power to shape our children in powerful ways. I knew Janey Morris, Principal of Four Star Academy was a people changer within minutes of speaking with her. I was curious about why a school had used ImagiTales to produce over 400 books? I decided to start at the top and was impressed with her openness and her entire staff. Four Star is a publicly funded Pre-K initiative school committed to literacy and building a solid educational foundation for their kids. Janey shared many different ways Four Star was using ImagiTales to teach reading concepts, build self-esteem and engage parents in the educational process. Our conversation led to how to make ImagiTales more affordable for schools that want to use the books for more students. Janey shared she had used grant money and called upon local civic clubs and corporate sponsors for funding to cover the cost of the books. She really thought outside the box and challenged ImagiTales to change our pricing structure for schools. On our Home Page under “Teacher’s Corner” you will find information about our Schools Pricing Program. I am thankful for the Janey Morris’s in this world and hope educators’ impact my children with her type of passion for teaching children.

Coloring is one activity all young children love to do. I can remember my first set of crayons and wanting to color every bit of white space I could find. I must have passed this trait along to my youngest son. He has had a fascination with different art forms since he was very young. Unfortunately, crayons don’t come off walls, carpet or furniture that easily. I have explained countless times about paper being an appropriate place to use his crayons. Coloring books seemed too restrictive for his taste. He doesn’t think his true “inner artist” is fully expressed coloring inside the lines. That was until ImagiTales released some of their books as coloring pages. Since his face is featured on every page, he wants to show himself looking as spiffy as possible. Coloring is such a great activity for rainy days or long car rides. Kids love to be able to express their own style by decorating their own book. We provide the face and your child brings their story to life. Have your kids grab a crayon and go crazy with color. You can find our coloring books under our “Book Titles”.

The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak as defined by Wikipedia.com. Reading is a basic core skill that is foundational for all other skills that we learn throughout our lives. Reading early and often to children is one of the best ways to teach our children to read, plus it helps develop relationships. I love this quote:

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
- Dr. Seuss

If children see us read they learn by our example. Talking with our children about stories we read together helps develop their vocabulary, increases their expressive language and critical thinking skills. Reading early and often helps develop life-long readers. Here are some sites with information about literacy and reading to our children:

www.readingrockets.org
www.reachandread.org

Jane is the kind of teacher you wished you had when you were in school. Her enthusiasm and excitement for working with kids is evident from the start. She is a public school Speech and Language Therapist. Jane commented, “I loved the books and so did the parents. More than us, the kids loved the books! Seeing their picture in the books made them beg to read them and ask for more. Even children who were not in my speech classes saw them and asked if I would make them a book. No doubt they are motivating and entertaining.” Jane shared some ways she used ImagiTales in a school setting you might find helpful:

• Use them for vocabulary development and to work on articulation (i.e. in naming objects with target sounds, reading practicing target sounds and even in practicing conversation skills.)
• Improve fluency therapy - practicing saying words, then phrases, then sentences fluently and practicing fluent conversational speech talking about the pictures.
• Teach basic, core vocabulary. Go through the book’s pictures and list every vocabulary word you can find on paper. As you read ImagiTales point out the objects in the pictures and talk about them (i.e. how they feel, what they sound like, where you can find them, does the child own one, etc., etc.)
• Ask the child to “point to the ___.” Once the child is pretty good with pointing, ask “what is this?” After being able to name objects fairly well, say “find something in the book that makes a MOOO sound,” or “something that makes light in the day,” or “where is the boy that is fishing?”
• Involve parents by making a list of target vocabulary words for each book. Beside each word make two columns for parents to check an X if the child points to the word correctly and another to check if they child names the word correctly. This actively engages the parents in the learning process and allows the teacher to know what they have accomplished at home. Doing this allowed the parents to know the vocabulary words that they could reinforce at home in others ways such as talking about the curtains in the child’s bedroom, the fish swimming in the water, the faucet on the sink, etc. etc.

The Tennessean interviewed us for a story about ImagiTales. The reporter really impressed us by her grasp of the technical aspects of our product. She asked good questions as the photographer snapped candid shots during our discussion. Things turn-on-a-dime some say. We noticed light bulbs of another kind going off in the photographer’s face. She began to share how she wished she had something like ImagiTales when her 18-year-old autistic son was growing up. It was neat to hear about her own personal journey with her son and the unique things she tried almost 20 years ago. It is cool when a product reaches children of all abilities with something as basic as a child being the center of a story.

Susan did it as a favor to us. Come for some refreshments, give us your honest opinion and we give you a gift certificate for your time. Little did we know that Susan would become one of our biggest supporters? She created an ImagiTale for her daughter and showed it to her daughter’s Speech Therapist, Lori Guimond, at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center. Susan’s daughter was so excited about her own story. Lori used it in therapy. Susan told other parents of language-delayed children and before we realized it, we had another audience for ImagiTales. Lori agreed to rewrite all our stories for language-delayed children, helping us reach another audience. The books for language-delayed children can be found under our Beginner Series. These stories are simplified and focus on key word recognition. The excitement language-delayed children feel at being the star of a story and the confidence they develop by learning key words is powerful. Thanks Susan!

When ImagiTales was in the development stage, I shared some of our books with girl friends and their kids at my house for playgroup. (We said it was for the kids, but actually it was our way of remaining sane while staying home with young kids.) One girlfriend, a licensed Occupational Therapist said, “Wow.. you have automated what we do”, to which I replied, “automated what?” My friend the Occupational Therapist went on to explain that O.T.’s create storyboards for some of their patients in order to teach them life skills. Some patients, particularly those on the Autism scale, have difficulty trying to self-actualize when it comes to learning new tasks such as potty training or brushing their teeth. In order for them to learn that they are the ones to learn the new task, OTs create story boards depicting the specific child performing a task using photos the parents have supplied. I was immediately asked if we had plans to create any more stories showing a child performing daily tasks. I was thrilled to know our books had the ability to help an unintentional audience. I have come to appreciate the challenges these parents face and happy to know ImagiTales can help this community of children.

When the idea for ImagiTales was first hatched, it was based upon the belief that children love to see themselves in pictures. Our partner, Steve, first noticed the reaction of his nieces seeing themselves in pictures. That reaction was the catalyst for creating ImagiTales, a site that would allow you to upload a child’s face, which would then become a character in a story. Although the site has undergone several changes and challenges throughout the development process, the reaction of children seeing themselves in a book has been constant. One of our first prototypes was created using a picture of Steve’s niece. Upon seeing her book, she immediately showed it to her friend across the street. She carried the ImagiTale with her all afternoon, produced on 8.5 x 11 copy paper at home, until it was a crumpled mess by bedtime. Children never tire of hearing stories about their childhood, seeing their own pictures or playing the main character in a story. Watching the simple joy and excitement a child viewing a book with their own name and picture makes it all worthwhile.