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Cigdem Knebel on Creating Decodable Books for Struggling Readers

Founder of Simple Words Books

The podcast episode features an insightful conversation with Cigdem Knebel, founder and author of Simple Words Books, who shares her journey from struggling to find suitable books for her dyslexic son to building a successful publishing company. Cigdem talks about her mission to provide engaging, decodable chapter books for children with learning disabilities, special education needs, or those learning English as a second language. She discusses the unique elements that set Simple Words Books apart and the importance of being data-driven in creating effective reading resources.

Simple Words Books offers engaging, decodable books designed to support children with dyslexia, special education needs, and ESL learners in discovering the joy of reading.

Cigdem Knebel
Founder of Simple Words Books

Hello and welcome to the latest Wytpod. I’m Stephen Bland, your host with Wytlabs, a full service marketing agency. Today’s guest is Cigdem. Cigdem, feel free to introduce yourself and let our viewers know about your background.

Hi, thanks for having me on today. I’m Cigdem Knebel. I’m the founder and author of Simple Words Books. We write and create decodable books for kids who are struggling to read or are new to reading and also kids who are learning English as a second language.

Awesome, what inspired you to create the brand?

I tried to find books that were longer, engaging stories that were decodable, meaning like using simpler words that are taught to kids who are learning to read at an earlier level for my son when he was diagnosed with dyslexia. And when we couldn’t find any that was easy to read, but was like a big chapter books, like a second, third grader would read, I started to write for him.
And I started sharing it with other people. I clearly saw a need. Then I became an author. And then we created our publishing company and started publishing other authors’ books so that we would have a lot of different options for the readers.

That’s amazing. Who is your ideal target audience?

So my ideal target audience, if you look at like who’s buying, who’s purchasing the books, would be special education teachers and parents who are looking for books for their kids to read at home for fun and really discover the love of reading. And anybody who’s working with students who are dyslexic or again, like English as a second language, any tutors, any learning centres.

Awesome. You’re in a very competitive space? What makes you different than your competitors?

So if you look at the whole children’s books, of course, you know, the decodable, which is now exploding and it’s been a very big buzzword and publishing world. We’re decodable, so we definitely differentiate ourselves for using words from a smaller pool of words that are easier to read for kids who are learning to read. But if you look at the decodable book world, what really differentiates us is we write bigger chapter books. So we have books over 10 ,000 words. engaging stories, they’re not the simple ones that you open and say, cats sit on a mat. have, for example, one of our best sellers, Fox Hunt. You can see them. This is like a really big kid’s book. I know you can really see it. And we also try that we are very data -driven when it comes to analysing our decodability.

Yeah, you can.

We make sure that we have a very clear list of scope and sequence at the back of each book, which explains what words we use, how frequently they are used, and they’re broken down by the phonics rules that they follow. Meaning that a parent, a teacher, could easily figure out if the reader has been explicitly told the rules that are included in that book and if they can comfortably read it or not. So that data analysis is really something we are very proud of.

That’s amazing. What are your most popular bestselling books?

So as I said, Fox Hunt is great. We have decodable readers that are shorter. These are books that really focus on a single phonics pattern. We recently published Emily Gibbons, is pretty big in the OG world, her story collection. And another book that we’re very proud of, really inspired by, is Amir’s Baraka undiagnosed. This is not decodable, but it is his biography. And if you don’t know Amir, he is a daytime, nominated actor, and who was brought up in the very rough parts of New Orleans. He has been in and out of jail. He was a drug dealer. He was incarcerated for manslaughter. And he was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 23, behind the bars.

And once he started to read and write, his life has changed. And now he’s quite a famous actor on cable TV. And it really focuses on the importance of literacy and how we could change the school to prison pipeline. It’s very inspiring.

Awesome. And you’re an author yourself, right? I see you have some books on there.

Yeah. Yes. So I have 16 books. All the chapter books are mine. And we have Jody Reiner and Emily Gibbons as part of our Decodable book series as well. They have read Decodable readers and Decodable story collections.

So what’s your favourite?

of old books or?

Yes. And in general, mean, in general of your books on the site, what is your favourite book on there?

I would say Amir’s book is my favourite. I know it’s not decodable, but his story is so inspirational and it just clearly shows what a difference literacy makes in a person’s future and a projected future, yeah.

Awesome. Well, speaking of the future, what is the future plan for yourself and Simple Words?

So we’re going to continue working with more authors and creating more books that are decodable. We are very proud that we are able to write in different genres. We are planning to expand that as well. So we want to go into more sci -fi, expand our fantasy as well. And if possible, we want to go into historical fiction. It’s a tougher genre to break in with decodable words because there are so many words that are not decodable that we cannot use but that’s something that we are very seriously focusing on and also expanding our selection in the lower parts of our scope and sequence using even easier words but continuing to create decodable chapter books.

Gotcha. Well, since becoming an entrepreneur and starting this amazing brand, what are some challenges that you faced and how are you able to overcome them?

I think the biggest challenge I faced was what I put as limitations to myself. You know, the worry about, what will I be able to do this on my own and all the limiting beliefs that I had. And then, of course, the fear of failure then followed by fear of success. Sometimes I can adopt myself unnecessarily. But, know, through experience is just I feel like I have proven to myself that I can do this. And once I accepted that this was a business and I was doing quite well with it, I think things really started to go exponential. So I have to say I was the biggest obstacle on my own way.

And you started that you started in 2018 you said.

2016.

2016. Okay, awesome. What’s been the most successful marketing activity to promote the brand?

So I would say direct marketing is the most successful one for us because if we reach our target audience, especially teachers especially, they understand what their students need. They know what level their students are at. So they’re very easy to explain what our books are about and how they can benefit them. So just reaching that audience and through direct marketing, that’s I think the easiest way for us to do that. And of course, going to the conferences where those teachers are is also critical.

Gotcha. Well, starting a brand in 2016 is amazing and being successful here today in 2024. What advice could you give an entrepreneur that’s looking to start a brand this year?

I would say be patient and be persistent. It takes a few years typically for a brand to really pick up. And what I have seen from other entrepreneurs who started at the time that I’ve done or maybe a little bit later, they didn’t have the patience and they didn’t have the persistence. And they gave up and they jumped to other ideas. But if you have an idea that you really believe in, and when you wake up in the morning, you say, this is what I want to do all day, every day, then stick with it for enough time to say, now this is becoming a person of its own. When a baby is born, they can talk, they can eat, they can walk. So you have to really be patient and nurture that baby until they’re able to stand on their own. And I feel like a lot of people don’t have that patience.

I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you want listeners to know about any of your other books or anything that I haven’t asked you?

Yeah.

So I would love to explain where they can find us, if that’s okay. So our website is simplewordsbooks.com. So if you go to our website, you can read a sample chapter and look at our scope and sequence details for each book, again, at simplewordsbooks.com backslash scope. And if you have any questions, you can always email me. We have a lot of buttons on our website, contact me or send a code.

Yes. Yeah.

I read every single email and I will be happy to answer any of your questions. We’re here to help all the teachers who are working so hard in the classroom to help the students who need.

That’s amazing. Well, I really appreciate your time and coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Bye bye.

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