There’s a Better Way to Read:
Why I Created LiYo Literacy Yoga Fusion®
The same kind of sudden, full-body knowing that struck when I first dreamed up what would become Promising Pages years earlier. But this time, it was 2021—the heart of the COVID lockdown—and the spark was different.
Schools were closed.
Kids were home.
And from what I could tell… many of them weren’t reading.
So I sent my first book, The LiLi Key, out into the world.
We mailed hundreds of copies—all over the country, from Hawaii to Guam to living rooms tucked into small-town America. All I asked in return was a book report. Some kind of reflection. A sign that the story had landed.
And it did. In fact, something incredible happened.
The feedback came pouring in—not just from kids, but from parents, too. Children were reading longer, deeper, and with more focus. A follow-up survey showed something astonishing: kids were reading 50% more—just from that one story.
But then I saw something else.
I saw my own kids—elbows flopped out like spaghetti, necks curled toward the page, backs slouched in unnatural contortions. I saw kids in Zoom classrooms reading hunched over kitchen tables, as if gravity itself was pulling them away from the words.
And that’s when the yoga teacher in me screamed:
There’s a better way.
One day, I asked my son to lie down on the floor in Sphinx pose—propping his elbows underneath his shoulders like a baby cobra about to rise. The difference was immediate: no neck pain. Better posture. Increased engagement. He could read longer… and he wanted to.
That one pose sparked it all.
Over the next two years, we built it—LiYo Literacy Yoga Fusion®, a revolutionary method that combines movement, breath, and brain-based strategies to help kids read with their whole bodies. No more slouching. No more frustration. Just kids becoming more attuned, more focused, and more empowered as readers.
We were incredibly grateful to pilot LiYo with the support of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, bringing this vision into real classrooms and real lives. We even created a self-paced online certification program so parents, educators, and caregivers could bring LiYo home. Interested in a workshop? We do that too!
I believe this work has the power to change the way kids read, learn, and store information in their brains and bodies.
Because the truth is:
It’s not that kids don’t want to read.
It’s that reading was never designed to support how their bodies actually learn best. The children today are different than we were and they need different things. Movement, engagement, full body reading.
With LiYo, we’re changing all of that—one breath, one posture, one page at a time.
For every child who’s been told to “sit still and focus”…
For every reader who thought their brain just couldn’t get it…
For every teacher or parent who’s ever wished for a better way—
It’s here.
LiYo Literacy Yoga Fusion®. Because there is a better way to read.
✨ Want to try it?
Explore the self-paced course or get certified at liyo.teachable.com
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