We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Appel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.
Hi Susan, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The Indy Learning Team (TILT) was born from my personal struggle with literacy, which spans three generations in my family. My grandfather, my daughter, and I are all dyslexic. Though separated by decades, we experienced similar challenges. My grandfather grew up in rural Indiana and dropped out of school at age 10 because he couldn’t read. At the time, his dyslexia was not understood, and he was labeled “stupid.” He remained functionally illiterate his entire life, carrying that shame despite building a successful business with my grandmother. He handled the manual labor, while she managed the contracts, but his success never eased the burden of illiteracy.
I was diagnosed with dyslexia in fourth grade, thanks to my parents, who had me tested. Despite having documentation of my learning challenge, my teacher took me into the hallway and told me I was “stupid” and would have to accept it. Fortunately, my parents had the knowledge and resources to provide me with the support I needed, and by high school, my dyslexia was no longer an issue.
When my first child was born, we were alert to the genetic components of reading difficulties. As she struggled with learning to read, we sought help from her school but were repeatedly told she was “fine.” By the end of first grade, they finally admitted, “It’s really bad.” We were devastated. We had been asking for help and trying to support her, only to be told we were wrong. Fortunately, we had the means to pay for four years of intensive intervention, and by high school, her dyslexia was a fully remediated.
Throughout that journey, I couldn’t help but wonder: What about the families who don’t have the resources or knowledge to provide this level of support? Around that time, I learned that 60% of U.S. fourth graders read below proficiency, and this has been the case for decades. The burden falls hardest on low-income communities, not because the children are dyslexic, but because they lack access to high-quality instruction that fills foundational gaps.
This realization led to the creation of The Indy Learning Team. For eight years, we’ve provided one-on-one intervention with reading specialists, trained from within the communities we serve, at no cost to the students. We’ve built reading cultures with our partners, curated books, held story times, and offered a free book club with Tamika Catchings and her Catch the Stars Foundation, giving away hundreds of free books. TILT’s programs bring high quality reading resources to students who would otherwise not receive them.
However, even with a 247% growth rate in student success, we realized it wasn’t enough. In the schools we served, 80% or more of the kids were still reading below grade level. One-on-one intervention alone wasn’t scalable. So, we examined our data and asked ourselves if we could build a better tool that provided targeted instruction, filled foundational gaps, and used instructional time more efficiently. That’s when TILT Tech with Adira Reads was born.
TILT Tech is an innovative initiative that is reshaping literacy education using AI, with a vision of ensuring that all children, regardless of socio-economic background, achieve literacy proficiency, thereby unlocking their full potential. TILT Tech is addressing what the Harvard Graduate School of Education has identified as a pervasive “stable level of mediocrity” in literacy education by leveraging generative AI to enhance the effectiveness of foundational literacy instruction.
In the pilot program, only 15% of K-3 students were prepared for grade-level content. However, TILT Tech with Adira Reads has shown remarkable success, closing the skills gap for 83% of 2nd graders in just eight weeks by providing targeted, data-driven instruction that empowers both students and educators alike. This approach not only improves instructional efficiency and reduces teacher preparation time but also fosters greater equity within the education system. In one school, where only 16% of the students were ready for the grade-level curriculum, we were able to raise that to 80% within just eight weeks—something rarely seen in education today.
Through TILT and TILT Tech with Adira Reads, we continue to fulfill our mission of providing access to literacy for all students, minimizing barriers, building community, anticipating needs, and using the science of reading to catch children before they fall behind.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
When asked to describe myself and how I entered this industry, I think back to a pivotal moment in my daughter’s dyslexia journey. I was told that some people are smarter than others, that she might never be able to read, and that I needed to lower my expectations for her. In that moment, I saw her future flash before me, and I realized it was my privilege to walk beside her on this journey. I knew I would remember that moment forever, even if the teacher who said it wouldn’t. I refused to accept an outcome that would limit her brilliant potential. She is brilliant, capable, smart, and funny—and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me otherwise.
As a leader, what I want people to know about me is that my determination in that moment wasn’t just for my daughter—it was for myself, for everyone who has ever been told they can’t achieve their full potential, and for everyone who lacks the resources to do so. The Indy Learning Team was born out of that determination and the belief that all students deserve access to literacy, because without it, their futures are limited.
Nine years ago, I asked myself, “How do we bring access to literacy to all people? How do we empower communities to build reading cultures and provide the resources that both adults and students need?” Over the past nine years, we’ve built an incredible team that supports each other, gives opportunities to both adults and children, and believes in the power of community. We’ve done it with scrappiness, determination, and a shared belief in the importance of our mission.
I’m incredibly proud of our team and our community. When I walk into a preschool, a school, or a community center and see the trail of our work—a stack of curated books from our librarian, a storytime with our partner Professor Watermelon where kids chant, “The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the more you grow,” or a student who’s gone from struggling to read to becoming a book lover after years of one-on-one intervention with a reading specialist—I know that each of those successes was hard-earned. We faced challenges finding the right partners and supporting students in the communities we serve, but we persevered because we believe every student deserves access to literacy. Just like my daughter deserved the chance to shape her own future, all kids deserve that opportunity.
My background is in marketing and PR, where I worked for some of the world’s biggest brands like Harley-Davidson, Kraft Foods, and American Airlines. However, it was my daughter’s experience and my belief in the power of literacy that led me to this work, and it’s what drives me every day.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
The Indy Learning Team’s story is about resilience. In our mission to provide access to literacy, change is the only constant. Serving students and families in low income populations brings with it lots of insecurity from housing to food to education. Our communities often lack teachers in the classroom, face generation low literacy levels, only have negative learning experiences, face food or housing insecurity and have never had a new book of their own.
During one of our first partnerships with a community Center, Chadwick Gillenwater AKA Professor Watermelon and I went to provide a creative writing and story time. Professor Watermelon is magical and lights up a room on every occasion, but this one. Everything went wrong and it did resonate with the students who had never been read aloud to or asked to write before.
We were standing in the parking lot and Chadwick said, “We will find a way. We will adjust and come back and find a way.” We sent eight years reading books and providing thousands of hours of literacy support from reading specialists to this community.
Resilience, the belief that all students are capable of learning and that all students deserve access to literacy that drives TILT to continue to find a way.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
TILT launched a new serviceline TILT Tech with Adira Reads. This innovative initiative is reshaping literacy education using AI, with a vision of ensuring that all children, regardless of socio-economic background, achieve literacy proficiency, thereby unlocking their full potential. TILT Tech is addressing what the Harvard Graduate School of Education has identified as a pervasive “stable level of mediocrity” in literacy education by leveraging generative AI to enhance the effectiveness of foundational literacy instruction.
I met TILT Tech with Adira Reads co-founder, Christina Kelly, ten years ago when she started working with my husband. After 10 year as COO, Christina decided to “retire”. I asked her for help with a small project improving our systems for handling our growth number of students and data. A year and a half later it is safe to say Christina has “un” retired and leads technology launch of TILT Tech with Adira Reads. Her work ethic, creativity and determination has made it possible to bring an innovative tool to market in a short period of time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theindylearningteam.org
- Instagram: @theindylearningteam
- Facebook: @theindylearningteam
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-appel-525ba910
Image Credits
Photo of Susan Appel, photo credit Faith Blackwell