Today we’d like to introduce you to Shantel Nobles.
Shantel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up, I did not realize that there were things that I didn’t have that other people had. I was happy. I had a full life. There was always food on the table. Mom and dad were always there. Now that I’m an adult, I know we didn’t have any money at all. But as a child, I did not feel or see that.
The vision of my company and brand started at an early age watching people I love struggle with literacy. I started my journey to success by working at a Literacy Center while in college to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to help those who struggle to learn the basic foundation of reading. I graduated from college in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education with an Emphasis in Reading and then in 2014 with a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. I consider myself a ‘forever student,’ eager to both build my academic foundations in literacy, psychology, and sociology.
My hunger for knowledge and determination to turn information into action has contributed to the most recent development of Grow Read Learn. Grow Read Learn is a non-profit that focuses only on literacy (reading, writing, comprehension, and spelling).
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, it has not been a smooth road. I become pregnant in 2010, which caused me not to finish graduate school the first time because I had to focus on being the sole-provider to not one but two premature children. My sons were born at 26 weeks with complications and I couldn’t focus on school and my children. I moved to Louisiana to be closer to my children, who were in the hospital there getting bigger and stronger daily. After three of the longest months ever, my children were discharged from the hospital and on the road to recovery, and I was able to focus back on building my brand until yet another stumbling block came into my life. I was laid off from teaching due to school closures and had no idea how I was going to take care of two children on my own but God. In 2013 God provided a new job for me in Dallas, TX and I moved immediately. Moving to Dallas was not easy because I had no family or friends here. Still, I knew that it was an opportunity of a lifetime and the boost that I needed to be able to provide for my family and to kickstart my Grow Read Learn company.
Please tell us about Grow Read Learn.
You don’t need fancy statistics to understand the importance of helping a child improve his or her reading skills. The acts of reading and being read to improve a child’s vocabulary, communication and comprehension, and open their imagination and eyes to the world around them. Grow Read Learn provides an interactive approach that focuses on building lifelong readers by developing a students’ ideas and transforms them into a masterpiece. Grow Read Learn uses the Big 5 approach, which consists of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Phonemic awareness is a child’s ability to hear the individual sounds in words. When a child has strong phonemic awareness, he can segment or pull apart words into individual sounds (say that /snake/ has four sounds /s/ /n/ /long a/ and /k/). Knowledge of phonics means that students understand the relationship between letters and the sounds they represent. Children read fluently when they read words at a pace that is fast enough to be understood and are not stopping often to sound out words.
Vocabulary refers to the number of words that a child knows. This includes common words that are used in everyday language (sit, happy, want), as well as less common words that are often found in books (ecstatic, bounded, desire), and content-specific words, such as words related to biology (cell, ecosystem, etc.).
Comprehension, or understanding, is the ultimate goal of reading. When children have strong comprehension skills, they can make sense of what they read, answer questions about what they read, tell you all about a story or topic, and engage in conversation about the ideas in a book.
My specialization is comprehension. When children can read and understand text at their grade level, they are well on their way to reading proficiently in 3rd grade, learning new things from books, and enjoying reading.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would not let setbacks hold me back. I would stay the course and not allow my personal life to get into the way of building my brand and providing for my family.
Contact Info:
- Email: noblesshantel@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growreadlearn/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/growreadlearn
Image Credit:
Millie’s Phenomenal Photography
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