The program follows CeCe, a young explorer from Paperback Lane, on a quest to rescue the \u201cSuper 6,\u201d a group of vowel characters captured by a villain known as the Scrambler. Through the story, children learn how sounds form words, progressing step by step rather than relying on memorization or guessing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-1024x768.jpg\")
Lianne Routtenberg (left) and Shawna Fleischer (right), co-creators of The Reading Adventures of CeCe and the Super 6, hold Volume 1 of their story-based phonics program designed to help children learn to read. (Submitted by: Shawna Fleischer)<\/p>\n
Built from classroom experience and parenting challenges<\/p>\n
Fleischer and Routtenberg, both graduates of McGill University, say the idea for the program developed over years of teaching and personal experience raising children.<\/p>\n
\u201cLianne and I met years ago when we were teaching at school. And we were always each other\u2019s confidantes. We always discussed the children in our classroom and what would be the best way to work with the children in school,\u201d Fleischer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we raised our children, and sometimes there were some challenges. And luckily Lianne and I are two educators, and we had each other to depend on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reflecting on those experiences, the pair recognized how difficult it can be for families to navigate the education system and find effective support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard. Being a parent is hard. It\u2019s not always easy to navigate. If your child doesn\u2019t fit into that perfect little box, it\u2019s very hard to find the right resources,\u201d Fleischer said. \u201cWe said, wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful if we took all of the knowledge that we had and gave parents something that they can actually be able to teach their children at home and not have to spend so much money on expensive tutors and even wasting their time and money? Because sometimes the schools suggest maybe a resource that might not be the best resource for your child at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A response to gaps in early literacy<\/p>\n
The program was also shaped by what they saw in classrooms, where some students struggled to keep up, particularly with reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren who aren\u2019t reading by Grade 3 face significant challenges,\u201d Fleischer said. \u201cIn Grade 3, they need to learn, and the only way to learn is to be able to read.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_1047-1024x768.jpg\")
Two different volumes of The Reading Adventures of CeCe and the Super 6, a story-based phonics program designed to help children learn to read. (Adriana Gentile, CityNews)<\/p>\n
She said many existing approaches emphasize recognizing whole words, rather than understanding how sounds work together.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of children were just having problems with phonetics, learning to read. The schools are very focused on the whole language approach. Lianne and I created this program as a phonics program so parents can teach their children how to read at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
A structured method rooted in phonics<\/p>\n
At the centre of the series is the POP Method \u2014 short for Phonics Organizational Program \u2014 which breaks down the rules of English into manageable steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went back to basics and looked at all of the rules of the English language, all the phonetic rules,\u201d Fleischer said. \u201cWe organized it into what we call CeCe\u2019s map, which is a systematic approach to learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cmap\u201d acts as a visual guide, allowing children to build knowledge incrementally as they move through each volume.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re learning the phonics, so that\u2019s the phonics part. Then you have the organizational. As you do the activities and you learn each letter, you\u2019re putting it back on CeCe\u2019s map. And it\u2019s a systematic approach, which means that you\u2019re learning with each volume all the way up to volume 15.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4-1024x655.jpg\")
Lianne Routtenberg (left) and Shawna Fleischer (right), co-creators of The Reading Adventures of CeCe and the Super 6, hold several volumes of their story-based phonics program designed to help children learn to read. (Submitted by: Shawna Fleischer)<\/p>\n
Visual cues play a key role in helping children connect sounds to letters and words.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren can manipulate the map just by looking at the visual clues,\u201d Fleischer added. \u201cThe sounds of the visual cues help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tested with children before release<\/p>\n
Before bringing the program to market, the creators spent four years testing it with children, including those with diagnosed learning challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to make sure that children could really be successful,\u201d Fleischer said.<\/p>\n
The books are now available through major retailers such as Amazon and Indigo, and have begun to gain traction in some schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome schools have started to implement it into the school system because they felt there was a learning gap that needed to be filled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Improving confidence alongside literacy<\/p>\n
\u200bBeyond reading skills, Fleischer said the program has had a noticeable impact on children\u2019s confidence and overall well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen is the results are unbelievable,\u201d she expressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have are some parents that are actually quite desperate. \u2018Please help me. My child has been going for therapy for three years. I\u2019ve spent so much money on tutors, literacy coaches, and my child is not getting anywhere.\u2019 By using the program, what we see is we have children that are non-readers that are able to be readers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effects, she added, extend beyond the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis success has been wonderful and it doesn\u2019t just impact the child, but it also impacts the family in its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve really seen some wonderful changes, not just in reading, but how a child perceives themselves and the confidence that they feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Designed to engage through story and visuals<\/p>\n
Routtenberg said the program\u2019s visual design and storytelling elements were carefully crafted to keep children engaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a huge cartoon fan or a cartoon nerd, whatever you want to call it. And so it was really a pleasure to be able to bring the program to life using illustration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The story itself was inspired by a real-life child named CeCe. She is now in high school, but when she was nine, it was actually her idea behind\u00a0\u201cThe Reading Adventures of CeCe and the Super 6\u201d \u2014 to take kids on an adventure, with a fun-loving villain named the Scrambler who scrambled words and lived on Devil Egg Island. She was the impetus for the storyline, and the creators said they wanted to honour her, which is why they named the series after her.<\/p>\n
The program\u2019s development also took several years, with Routtenberg noting it evolved through repeated testing and refinement with children before being finalized.<\/p>\n
Bright visuals and relatable characters are intended to make children feel part of the journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted kids to be enthused and we wanted them to feel really part of this story and part of this journey. So we wanted to make characters that they could love and identify with and to be fun and colourful, and that\u2019s kind of how we created the characters. We wanted them to be appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n
A foundation for lifelong learning<\/p>\n
For both educators, the long-term goal extends beyond early reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want children to be empowered, to become critical thinkers, to seek out information on their own, to become contributing members of society, you know, to think for themselves and to be innovators. So I hope that this is the first step in their long, wonderful journey,\u201d Routtenberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always been a passion of mine and Lianne\u2019s to create something that can really help parents navigate the educational system. And what\u2019s really nice to see is that it\u2019s helping these children. It\u2019s helping them in a way that other programs haven\u2019t been able to help them. And it\u2019s just a wonderful feeling,\u201d added Fleischer.<\/p>\n
Through CogniQuest Learning, Fleischer and Routtenberg say they hope their program will help more families build strong literacy skills early \u2014 setting children up for success in school and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of Montreal-based educators is aiming to change how children learn to read, with a new phonics-driven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-648250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}