Two former District 58 students turned teachers take literacy instruction to the next level

By Valerie Hardy

As students at Fairmount Elementary School, Beth Hatlen and Karla O’Brien learned to read together. Today, these childhood friends run a business that helps thousands of other students learn to read.       

Karla O’Brien reading to students.
Photo by Mark Wierda

Hatlen and O’Brien co-founded Classmates Educational Group, Inc., under which they have owned and operated Slant System™ since 2021. Slant System – a structured literacy intervention for students with dyslexia or who are otherwise struggling to learn to read – uses the Orton-Gillingham approach, a proven method for literacy instruction dating back approximately a century.  

Slant System combines this powerful literacy intervention for students with a comprehensive literacy training program designed for educators. It was this training that first introduced Hatlen and O’Brien to what they consider “best practice for how all students – and humans – should be taught to read,” Hatlen explained.

Before buying Slant System from its creator, Marsha Geller, under whom they were certified in the unique approach to teaching reading, spelling, and writing skills, Hatlen and O’Brien gained a deep understanding of children’s literacy needs during their collective 40 years in education.

“This is how all children should learn to read.”

— Karla O’Brien, on the Slant System™

Hatlen primarily worked as a kindergarten teacher and then a reading specialist at Indian Trail Elementary School. O’Brien started her teaching career in the Hinsdale and Clarendon Hills schools before joining the Pierce Downer Elementary School staff as a special education resource teacher. It was during their mutual time as teachers in Downers Grove Grade School District 58 that Hatlen and O’Brien reconnected after losing touch following their time as students within the district.

During the 2018-2019 school year, District 58 offered to send teachers to the Slant System training. “It was a very intensive training, taking place after hours and on Saturdays, so only a few teachers in the district took the opportunity,” Hatlen said.

She was grateful she and O’Brien were among these few. “Teachers in undergraduate and graduate programs aren’t always taught how to teach reading correctly,” Hatlen said. “Even with a master’s degree in reading, I learned things through the Slant System training I had never learned before about best practices for how reading should be taught.”

O’Brien equally appreciated the training. She only wished she had done it sooner. Prior to the training, she was never taught how to look for the signs of dyslexia or how to remediate it. After completing the training, she thought to herself, “If only I knew then what I know now, imagine the difference I could have made.”

While it’s impossible to go back in time to change their previous approaches to literacy instruction, O’Brien and Hatlen fully committed to implementing the Slant System method going forward. That’s why O’Brien, upon learning of Geller’s plans to retire, immediately texted Hatlen and said, “We have to take [Slant System] over! There are so many more students we need to reach.”

Hatlen didn’t need to be convinced, and the two teachers became businesswomen almost overnight. Their first year in business, Hatlen and O’Brien continued teaching in District 58. However, they then made the “really hard decision to leave the schools in order to impact more children,” Hatlen said. “We’re still teachers – just now instead of teaching students, we teach teachers.”

Slant System training in action.
Photo by Mark Wierda

Slant System offers professional development at three levels, from a three-day Foundations course to a yearlong Structured Literacy Practicum with One-on-One Coaching. While school districts are the biggest clients, “parents also take our course, and so do literacy tutors,” Hatlen said. Slant System’s website even features a database of literacy tutors.

O’Brien said five years into running the business – which holds the highest level of accreditation from the International Dyslexia Association – she and Hatlen have seen a significant “ripple effect” from their work. Not only have they helped students and educators across the nation, but these Downers Grove-based literacy leaders also continue to make an impact close to home, which Hatlen and O’Brien can attest to from both professional and personal perspectives. Hatlen has two teenage children, and O’Brien has five children ages 10-24, one of whom has dyslexia. His teacher in District 58 used the system, which really benefited him. “This is how all children should learn to read,” O’Brien said, “then we wouldn’t have any struggling readers.”

Visit slantsystem.com for more information.