A Letter from our Founders
We met as mothers of daughters with learning differences over 20 years ago when our children were in first grade. Although our backgrounds were quite different, one an educator and one a nurse anesthetist, we had much in common. We both were on the journey to put together an educational solution for our girls and looking for evidenced-based programs to ensure our daughters reached their full potential. Status quo was not acceptable. As parents of struggling readers and as professionals committed to following the research, our lingering question was always, “Can this be better?”
This was the impetus of AIM Academy in 2006. The vision was to create a model school whose curriculum was steeped in the research, where there was a bridge between the research and classroom practice, and where the learning environment was engaging and filled with educators who not only knew the research but knew how to translate the research to practice and bring out the strengths of each student. The goal was that AIM would serve as a “teaching school” in the model of “teaching hospitals” where the top researchers and practitioners could advance the field of education working side by side.
Today that vision has become a reality with the expansion of the AIM Institute for Learning & Research focused on active research and teacher training. AIM partners with global researchers and invests in technology to bring evidence-based practices to scale. AIM’s partnerships with literacy researchers including the Florida Center for Reading Research, Stanford University, and Haskins Global Literacy Hub at Yale promises to accelerate the rate of research to practice in AIM’s partner schools throughout the region and beyond. AIM’s innovative professional learning opportunities, AIM Pathways, deliver highly interactive, comprehensive, evidence-based teacher training aligned to the IDA Knowledge and Practice Standards and the published State Standards in Education.
More than 45,000 educators including administrators, teachers, para-professionals, and tutors have been trained in AIM courses since 2019 and are learning and applying the Science of Reading in classrooms to benefit students in schools across the country. Many of the AIM Pathways courses are graduate accredited and there are micro-credential courses for individual badging. AIM Pathways is approved in many states as part of their Science of Reading and Dyslexia legislation requirements.
Data analyzed by researchers at Georgia State University on our AIM students in grades 2-5 over ten years shows that the AIM Integrated Literacy Model enables our students exceed norms for rate of improvement in reading fluency. This supports the research that all six components of literacy: oral language, word recognition, comprehension, writing, assessment, cross-curricular interactive content, must be woven into a comprehensive learning model if we are to maximize every child’s literacy outcomes.
As you become acquainted with AIM via our website, we encourage you to visit AIM and our new Global Innovation Hub, tour our EEG Lab, meet with our Research Advisory Board, or register for one of our many parent or teacher training sessions online or on campus. We hope to hear from you soon!
With warm regards,
Pat Roberts and Nancy Blair
AIM Co-Founders