Designed for Greatness with Candice Noss

Candice Noss: Hello and welcome to the design for greatness, podcast conversations with Candace to help you elevate your mind, body, and spirit, and own your divine greatness.

Candice Noss: Today you have my interview with Jodi. Rubin. Jodi is a marketing strategy and project management leader. Currently she serves as a senior vice president of marketing and partnerships for the reading is fundamental foundation. She's passionate about education, and she has overseen many international education, marketing initiatives.

Candice Noss: Jodi loves to bring key initiatives to teachers and students with unique educational content and resources to inspire and engage students.

Candice Noss: I am so excited to have Jodi here because I want her to share with all of my listeners this information that she has about this free Reading engagement initiative called Rally to read it kicks off on October 1st of 2,024, and

Candice Noss: reading is just so critical to helping us find what lights us up, and to inspiring us to do the great things in this world, and Jodi truly is living into her greatness as she is striving to increase literacy and empower the love of reading and others. Jodi, welcome.

Jodi Rubin: It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Candice Noss: Absolutely. So let's just dive in. Tell us what is reading is fundamental. And what brought you into this organization.

Jodi Rubin: Sure. So reading is fundamental is a nonprofit organization. We will hit our 60 year anniversary in just another year. We started with a very basic premise. And it's still our mission today, which is to get books and reading resources into the hands of children.

Jodi Rubin: Often children who don't have access to books in their own communities. It's hard to believe, especially when I look around like books are such an important part of my life. But there are many children who don't have a book on their bookshelf at home, and we work very hard every day to try to change that.

Candice Noss: I love that

Candice Noss: when I I do humanitarian trips, and I did a trip to Fiji and Kenya and Nepal, and every trip we do we each bring our favorite book.

Jodi Rubin: And for my.

Candice Noss: And and we donate them to the schools. And it's amazing to see what a book does to light up a kid. And they a lot of a lot of people, not even just in 3rd World countries. But you're right even here in America and in the States don't have access to books in hands.

Jodi Rubin: Don't. And you use the word light up. It's interesting

Jodi Rubin: when we talk about reading fundamental. When I 1st started there 7 years ago at the organization. We don't teach reading, but we do impact reading. And that's because what we bring to the table is inspiring that joy of reading. And I'm sure you've heard of the science of reading. It's a very obviously reading instruction, and teachers are critical. We owe them so much every single day. I have a daughter who's a teacher, so I highly highly applaud every educator.

Jodi Rubin: But when you take the science of reading, language, comprehension, and vocabulary words, and that and you combine it. What reading is fundamental does, which is increase that joy, that reading motivation, that's when the magic happens, and that when when you see real impact in a child's reading journey.

Candice Noss: That's amazing. And I believe reading is essential to figuring out your path in life.

Candice Noss: Right? Yes.

Jodi Rubin: There's there's a saying that up until 4th grade you're learning to read. And then, after 4th grade, you're reading to learn. So just think about it. If you can't read.

Jodi Rubin: then every other door is closed to you. You can't be a scientist. You can't be a chef, it's you can't be anything because you don't have the basic skill. So once you've learned to read, you can learn to be anything. So it truly is an opera. It's the equalizer. It's the opportunity to open the door for every child, and every child deserves that it's not. We believe that it is not a privilege to be able to read. It is a right of every child to be able to read.

Candice Noss: It's so true, and it is. Knowledge is power, and you have to be able to read, to gain that knowledge. And it is. It is what allows you to really step into your gifts and your strengths and your talents, and use that to serve this world. Reading is fundamental, fundamental.

Jodi Rubin: Yeah, surely, I mean beauty. It's in our work. I mean, when you look at, I hate to get into data, crunching and numbers, especially on your podcast which is so

Jodi Rubin: aspirational. But 25 million children in the United States don't read at a proficient level. Imagine if we can continue to work to change that, what it means for our economy and for our productivity. You have to build a read, to be ready for career, readiness, college readiness, whatever your path is. That's the 1st piece of that path, and we have to work together. It takes a village. It can't just be one educator, one family, one community organization. We all need to all be together on this pathway.

Candice Noss: I love it so.

Candice Noss: So tell me, what is this rally to read, and how? How is this going to impact and and help engage all of these readers.

Jodi Rubin: One. I am so excited to share this with you today, because rally the Reid, as I mentioned to you when we met, is, I consider my 3rd child.

Candice Noss: I.

Jodi Rubin: It's a big part of my life at reading fundamental. A lot of our work has done it. Obviously, we're a nonprofit. So we get partnerships, companies, foundations, and when we get dollars they come in. We're able to go into communities and hand out hard books, bring community book celebration events, and they are wonderful, and there's nothing better. But not every child is going to be a part of those

Jodi Rubin: opportunities. So 4 years ago we had 2 things happen that led us to rally to read. We had Covid hit.

Jodi Rubin: And as we know, a lot of learning went online and we did some research, I don't even think you needed to do the research to know and recognize that you saw reading, motivation, going down, reading, frequency going down.

Jodi Rubin: and families were busy. They were trying to survive. So they weren't spending as much time on the fundamentals of getting kids reading and excited to read, at the same time reading fundamental hit, a huge milestone we had supported or impacted our 100 million child over the 60, almost 60 years.

Jodi Rubin: So we thought, what mission centric program could we put out there? So no matter where you are, what you're doing or where you live, you could have access

Jodi Rubin: 2 stories. So that was the beginning of rally to read, which in reality it's very simple. It's a 6 month reading campaign to get kids excited. We want to increase kids reading frequency. We want them motivated. We want them engaged and we build it. So it's 6 months each month has a theme. Hopefully, a theme that's relevant to whether you're a family or a classroom. It could be used by anyone.

Jodi Rubin: and we anchor every theme with read alouds from great authors who commit and don't

Jodi Rubin: make their time to do these real outs just for Riley to read. So it's wonderful when you turn on a when you go to. Riley, read it set a solid website free to everybody, and you listen to the the read alouds. What I love is, instead of them all being super polished and elegant and edited and produced. They are grassroots. They're sitting in their kitchen. They're sitting in their family room, and they're talking to all these students face right through the camera.

Jodi Rubin: Talk to them because they're part of Riff and rally to read. And we had one author last year. Who goes? Oh, I said that wrong. I made a mistake. But that's okay. We all make mistakes when we're reading. What's the better message for a child than to hear an author make a mistake on their own book. So that's what makes these these read alouds just so special for us.

Candice Noss: Awesome so anybody can can join. And and how does that work.

Jodi Rubin: There is a website, rallytoread.org.

Jodi Rubin: It launches on October first, st and you go to the website and you'll it's pretty easy to navigate, and it's fun, and it's

Jodi Rubin: bright colors and engaging for children. And there is a read a lot. So, for example, in October the theme is community. We love that as our launch theme, because community, as we talked about is so relevant, important to reading on a child's reading journey, and there'll be a Penguin Random House, which is a publisher. There'll be a story from them, and then Barnes and Noble is a great partner for us, and they always provide a Barnes and noble story. Time Pick.

Jodi Rubin: The authors, introduce the theme, and they share their wonderful books, and we have related book activities. So if a family member or teacher wants to talk about the book before or after. And really we call it creating a culture of literacy. It's not just the book, but building upon the story. We provide those activities

Jodi Rubin: and then addition, we provide packets of theme activities that you can do in the classroom. You can do at home. We don't want it to be read. Listen to the read aloud, and walk away we want mentioned, and I'll probably say this 10 more times. It's about the joy. And if we, whatever we can do to create joy and listening to that story, and then keeping that joy going is what we do, and we provide all kinds of activities to support that rally, to read.

Candice Noss: I love it, I love it. That joy of reading is key.

Jodi Rubin: so yeah, another way that we do it is when you go to the website, you can take the pledge to read 100 books. It's very symbolic. But again, what do you do to get kids excited? And we ask that every child, every classroom, every family, take the pledge. There's nothing you have to do but read a hundred books between now and National Reading month, which is in March, and it gets kids excited. And then we give them book lists and other opportunities to help reach that goal.

Candice Noss: That's so fun. So I love what you're doing. And I think it's really interesting to dive into what lights people up and why. And

Candice Noss: obviously reading is something that you are extremely passionate about. What led you to this in your life, and how? How has this

Candice Noss: been fulfilling a desire deep within you.

Jodi Rubin: Sure that's a great question, and one I probably haven't thought about. It's so interesting. And this may sound cliche. But as a little girl. I did not come from a

Jodi Rubin: a family with a lot of means.

Jodi Rubin: We were very humble, a single mom and reading, and when I look back at. It was a huge part of my life.

Jodi Rubin: I read all the time. I probably I don't know. Did we still had the book challenges when I was little.

Jodi Rubin: Yes, I knew that I may not have had all the things that my peers had.

Jodi Rubin: but I had these books, and I think becoming, and because I was an avid reader, and I cared so much. It allowed me to grow as a student and get to a place that maybe others in my family had not gotten to, so I didn't purposely go looking for a career in reading. But I think, as an adult, and looking back, it was such an important

Jodi Rubin: component of my journey and college and grad school, and I ended up actually in a for-profit. I worked for discovery communications for many, many years of Discovery Channel and all those great channels.

Jodi Rubin: and halfway through my career I was asked to do a special project in the Education Division.

Jodi Rubin: and it opened my eyes because I started being exposed to hundreds of educators, and was amazed by what they did every day, and how much impact they made on a student and back. Then my work was about taking great content from, for example, Discovery Channel Show and turning that content into meaningful opportunities for students to learn and thrive.

Jodi Rubin: So I started building this path in education without even intentionally going that way.

Jodi Rubin: And then, not to make a very long story too long, I decided to take a break when my daughter, my oldest, was going to college. I thought, I want to slow down. I want to enjoy this moment. I've been working since I was 12 years old. I'm going to take a break. I'm going to

Jodi Rubin: live in the moment, take her to college, enjoy all that.

Jodi Rubin: And then an old colleague of mine, who is now the CEO of Risk, said, would you do a special project? I'm starting as the CEO of Venus fundamental.

Jodi Rubin: I said, well, I'll try it. And then, 7 years later, I obviously more than tried it. You can't help but enter the space

Jodi Rubin: and recognize how critical reading is, and then walk away from it. So, although I thought this was going to be a 6 month engagement, it's a 7 year and continuing engagement, because every day the work that we do.

Jodi Rubin: even if it's 1 child at a time, is truly making a difference, and just

Jodi Rubin: watching a child pick out a new book when they may not own a book. There's no words that you can put to that.

Candice Noss: Right.

Candice Noss: I love what you were talking about. I love your story, and often we end up in a place that we didn't really intend to be. However, you look back, and you see that there was a purpose in all of it, in every every lesson, every turn and twist of the road, and it makes sense now.

Jodi Rubin: It didn't make sense during the journey, but it does make sense when you look back.

Candice Noss: It's kind of like that analogy of when you're looking at something that you're crocheting or something. You look at the back, and it doesn't make any sense, but then you flip it over and you see the front, and it's this beautiful masterpiece, and when you're in the thick of it, it's almost like you can only see the back like the yeah knots. And the

Candice Noss: I think it's it's really powerful to recognize that pattern in life. And knowing that when you put yourself out there, to to serve and to follow a passion, and to

Candice Noss: notice what makes a difference for others and for yourself, that you end up in a way where you really can own your greatness and use it to do great things.

Candice Noss: Beautiful.

Candice Noss: I was thinking about how you were talking about Covid, and how it changed reading a little bit because everything was online. And

Candice Noss: I know when I'm just reading

Candice Noss: on the computer on a screen. I'm not too jazzed about reading either. Yet you put a book in my hand and it. It changes everything. Do you have any statistics about that? Or do you have any statistics about what an actual book in hand does for for a student.

Jodi Rubin: No, it's a great question. I don't have any stats in front of me, but I will share this.

Jodi Rubin: There is when we did the studies. There is true there is true fatigue of being a digital learner.

Jodi Rubin: Students were on there, and I could pull. I could look for quotes for you. But teachers were saying.

Jodi Rubin: my kids are on the computer all day. They don't want to do their reading at night on the computer. And even. And so I could give you an more

Jodi Rubin: anecdote.

Jodi Rubin: Kit. Obviously, kids are digital natives. They are very well equipped on computers and tablets

Jodi Rubin: and all those great things way more than I am, because I still love a book. But one child at an event talked about the smell of walking in and seeing all these new books. I never thought about that right. There is a smell to a new book.

Jodi Rubin: so I think it

Jodi Rubin: captures how important the print book is, just as much as the digital book, because if a child can articulate how excited they are to feel and touch and smell the new book, I mean numbers can only, you know, not even bring that to justice. So

Jodi Rubin: I think I mean, we believe in beating a child where they are. So we do have a digital library called Skybury of ebooks.

Jodi Rubin: because sometimes that's another easier way to get them. But we we believe so much in giving out physical books as well. We give out millions of physical book physical books. Something I didn't even mention is in the rally to read program we're giving a week. This will be our 4th year. We give away 10,000 books.

Candice Noss: Wow!

Jodi Rubin: Sweepstakes for any educator. In K. Through 5 we pick 100 educators to win 100 books for their school. We do it every year, thanks to the generosity of working with Barnes and Noble, so we believe so much in the hard books. I

Jodi Rubin: they're I don't know how to express what a child looks like when they have choice. I mean, there are definite research studies after research studies that when a child can choose the book they read, they're gonna

Jodi Rubin: be more motivated to read it. And so we that is a premise of everything that readings fundamental is about. We do not choose the book for the child. They get to choose what is interesting to them and what's going to motivate them. And that's what we do. We do not hand. Pick books for the kids.

Candice Noss: Oh, it's so important that agency is a critical thing. You're like, you don't control me. I get to choose. That's a big deal. And I also.

Jodi Rubin: Yeah.

Candice Noss: Yeah. And I also think when I just know with my kids when they turn the page, that's like

Candice Noss: a little sense of success, right, and every time you turn a page it's like a little sense of like I'm getting something done. This was good. I'm look how far I've come, and

Candice Noss: I know I'm reading a book right now that my daughter that just is her 1st year in college. She's read all of them, and they're a huge series. It's Brandon Sanderson, anyway, it's this, it's this big, huge book. And she's like, How far are you, Mom? And I'm like this far this far.

Jodi Rubin: So fun. But but you know what's so interesting about that

Jodi Rubin: when you think about reading aloud to your child, you think of little kids right.

Jodi Rubin: but older kids love to do as much they like. I used to do the same thing. My daughters are a little bit older than I have one in grad school. Sometimes she'll say I'm reading this book to you, and I'll read it, too, so we can talk about it.

Jodi Rubin: They still want to cut. I still think a family of a caregiver and a parent or volunteer can still be so engaged in the process, no matter how old your child is.

Candice Noss: Absolutely. And it's it's fun. The different conversations that get started. I mean, for example, I'm reading this Brandon Sanderson book and the main character. I call him Coladin, and he calls him Kaladin. And so we just have this ongoing battle about how you pronounce his name. And I mean it's just so fun and talk about the the little

Candice Noss: little intricacies, and the the little happenings and the lessons and the things that they're going through. I love. I love that ability to connect on different levels through books and stories, and truly, stories are what teach us and what what hit us in our hearts. I mean, someone can speak and talk for hours. And what do you remember? You remember the one story they told right.

Jodi Rubin: Yeah.

Candice Noss: And I think it's.

Jodi Rubin: Share something that stands out in my mind. So much is last year we do a culminating event for Riley to read, and we do it at the Barnes and Noble store in New York, and last year we had the wonderful opportunity to have heard a copy of the today show read her book. Hope it's a rainbow and it was it was. The book is all about. If you hope it, you can be it. If you dream it you can be it. What a great to your point!

Jodi Rubin: What a story! And she asked. All this! I think they were 1st graders. She asked them to raise their hand and come up and share what their hope is, what they want to dream to be. And they had to have a media release to be.

Jodi Rubin: We were live streaming this event for all the kids. It's part of Rally Reed. You can watch it all over the country. We'll have another one this year, and one little boy, unfortunately, did not have immediate release. He kept raising his hand over and over again, and she kept calling him, not knowing that he couldn't be up there, so he was very sad.

Jodi Rubin: So she finishes and he's leaving, and the little boy, you can tell he's visibly upset, and one of my colleagues, who is a former teacher, as many of them are. She went up to Hoda and said, Would you mind just taking a moment and letting this little boy tell you what his hope is. He wasn't able to go up to the stage, so he comes up to her and he goes. I just want you to know when I grow up. My hope is to be a hero, and it was. She grabbed him and picked him up and was holding him

Jodi Rubin: and realize the impact of her story. Right? She just read this story

Jodi Rubin: about you can hope that you can be it. He's a 1st grader, you know, from a community that doesn't have a lot of resources. And here he was so happy

Jodi Rubin: and proud to share that he's going to be a hero after reading her book. I mean, that's what reading is about.

Candice Noss: It's beautiful. Well, I am all about the mind, the body, and the spirit, and

Candice Noss: living in alignment with that, and to me, living with a mind firmly aligned is critical to living your best life. And so many of the problems that we're facing in this world is mental illness. Things where our mind is out of control, things where we do not have a mind firmly aligned. In fact, our mind is is being taken over by things that are not

Candice Noss: in our best interest. And one thing that is powerful about reading is, it gets you to focus your mind on those things, and as long as you're reading uplifting things, it helps. You see how other people think. It helps you figure out how other people

Candice Noss: get in the life of someone else for a minute, and that is something that's so important to our minds. Have you have you noticed any anything, any correlation between like mental illnesses and reading.

Jodi Rubin: I would think, oh, I have 2 comments. If it's okay. One. I just want to share something about reading that helps you learn about others, and then I will talk about mental illness and reading.

Jodi Rubin: We have the philosophy, and we didn't come up with this, that books are windows and mirrors.

Jodi Rubin: Every child should be able to see themselves in a book that they read, but also every child should be able to learn about others through what they read, so we very much try to have such a wide selection and respect that every child again should be able to look in the mirror, read a book and see themselves in that story. So I just want to make that comment. I think it's just so critical to every young reader in having such a variety of books, because you do learn about the world and others

Jodi Rubin: there. I remember when I was back at discovery, we talked about the fact

Jodi Rubin: that this group of students had never been to a beach.

Jodi Rubin: but they had read a book about a beach. They thought and felt very much that they had had that trip. And reading is fundamental. Last summer we did a whole program again on a website free to everybody. Summer reading field trips where we, if you can't get away on a field trip you could read a book, and it would take you on a virtual field trip. So I do think that's just critically important. But in terms of mental illness I will. I don't have any direct correlation, but we do

Jodi Rubin: have a lot of books and initiatives around social emotional learning. And how do you leverage books to support Sel in the classroom? So we have a center called our Sel center. It's on our website. It's I don't want to throw too many websites. But if you go to riff.org, it's at Literacy Central, and there's

Jodi Rubin: book topics and curriculum instruction and research and activities related to topics of social, emotional learning for kids that really equip families and educators with content that could help them

Jodi Rubin: focus on and get involved in these very hard topics, when, especially with Covid going back to.

Jodi Rubin: On going back to the classroom after Covid was truly hard for many students. They had a

Jodi Rubin: learn how to follow rules again. They had a

Jodi Rubin: some of them had to get out of their bed, you know, sit at a desk. So though the resources around social, emotional learning that we provide

Jodi Rubin: don't specifically talk about mental illness. But I think they're there to help try to create pathways to support teachers for kids that are having challenges in those areas.

Candice Noss: Yes. Well, and I think it's it's powerful to get your mind thinking in uplifting ways. And that's what stories do they get your mind thinking in uplifting ways, and and it's just a beautiful, powerful thing. So

Candice Noss: I was wondering, is there anything on your heart that you feel would be important, as we kind of come to a close here. Is there anything that you feel like? You want to share any stories or any other information that you think might be valuable, as

Candice Noss: we're inspiring everyone to go out and read and get on the rally to read website and get books in kids hands

Candice Noss: anything on your heart that you'd like to leave us with.

Jodi Rubin: That's a great question. I I think my heart is just what we said is.

Jodi Rubin: we all love to read, and we're all fortunate enough to be able to pull out a book, whether it's on our night table on a bookshelf.

Jodi Rubin: but not everybody has that opportunity, and we forget that in our day to day, and we can't forget that, because it is all of our responsibilities as a community

Jodi Rubin: to ensure that every child has that opportunity. So whether it's rally to read. So you can listen to a read aloud and then talk about it and get your child excited, whether it's just really encouraging families if they can't, if they need to go to the local library. But libraries aren't accessible to everybody, whether it's just to your point, having a great conversation with your child about a book and talking about it.

Jodi Rubin: We just have to each do our little part to make a big impact. And so I just feel very lucky that you invited me to be here today to talk about what I care about. I mean, rally read is one thing. Riff is bigger. But reading it's I mean, look you mentioned, our days are crazy. Our minds are going. I end every evening reading a book. I'm super type a if you can't tell, I'm all over the place. But when I take a moment and pause.

Jodi Rubin: even more than Yoga or Pilates, or any of those wonderful things in my life.

Jodi Rubin: The reading my book calms me down and centers me, and I just think everybody deserves that opportunity. So thank you for letting me share that today.

Candice Noss: Absolutely well said, and just so grateful that you would be here and express to everybody this passion for reading, because it truly is a beautiful way to live into our greatness, and and to do great things in this world. So thank you so much, Jodi.

Jodi Rubin: Thank you for having me.

Candice Noss: Thank you for joining me today. What a great initiative happening at Rallytoread org the passion that Jodi feels about reading and getting books into the hands of kids is contagious.

Candice Noss: I know I feel inspired about doing my part to engender the joy of reading into those in my circle.

Candice Noss: It was beautiful. How Jodi said, books are both windows and mirrors windows because they give us a glimpse into the lives of others, and mirrors as they allow us to identify with and see ourselves in the characters of the stories we read.

Candice Noss: One thing I know, dreaming, believing, and having a vision.

Candice Noss: These things are so critical in order for us to grow and live an elevated life.

Candice Noss: Reading truly is fundamental. It helps us to dream, it inspires us to believe, and it busts open belief, ceilings about what's possible.

Candice Noss: Reading opens minds to new ways of thinking, and it expands our vision.

Candice Noss: Reading is a great way to unwind, and truly it is one of my favorite ways to show myself some love, especially if there is a hot bath and bubbles involved.

Candice Noss: To take advantage of this program, go to Rallytoread org and sign up for the 6 month. Rally to read program.

Candice Noss: Take advantage of all the resources there you can commit to reading your 100 books

Candice Noss: ultimately

Candice Noss: I hope that you get more books in the hands of those that you love.

Candice Noss: Good books. Bless lives!

Candice Noss: I am offering something else that will bless your life. I have created a free Mini course to get you started on the path of becoming the boss of your brain. It's called 5 days of focus.

Candice Noss: The mind truly, is the battlefield, and it's critical that we wake up to our thoughts and learn to live with a mind firmly aligned, a body purposefully loved, and a spirit powerfully accessed.

Candice Noss: Mind, body, spirit, alignment. It starts with becoming the boss of our brain, and it is the linchpin to living an elevated life.

Candice Noss: The link to this free course is in the show notes. I can't wait to help you become the boss of your brain so that you can more fully live an elevated, meaningful life of fulfillment, and show up powerful in this world.

Candice Noss: Always remember you are designed for greatness.