RACINE, Wis. — If there’s one thing a teacher at any level can tell you, learning isn’t the same for every student. 

That’s especially true now, since the pandemic affected how schools operate and where students are with their learning. 

"There’s some first graders that don’t know their letter sounds, can’t identify letters," said Amber Nurmi, an Educational Assistant for Literacy at Jefferson Lighthouse Elementary School in Racine. "So those are some of the students I work with to get them caught up to standards.” 

It’s not always hard lessons. Nurmi likes to make it fun. There's a matching game she plays with her students to help them find matching letter tiles.

To keep the match, they have to properly say the letter and how it sounds phonetically.  

"They’re six and seven-years-old, and I want them to know learning is fun," Nurmi said. 

It’s a lot of work, but it’s work Nurmi loves doing. 

“I love kids," she said. "I want to interact and put my foot in as many kids’ lives as I can.”

Nurmi also loves writing, and has since she was in high school.  

She said has notebooks and journals filled with stories. 

About two years ago, a friend read something she wrote. 

“A good friend of mine got ahold of something I wrote, and said, ‘you need to publish this stuff.’”

So, she started to look into it. 

As a first time author — she had a lot to figure out. 

“Writing it was the easy part," Nurmi said. "[But I had to find] a publisher, I had to format it correctly, I had to figure out how am I going to get this printed and distributed and out into the world."

She found out about a program through Amazon, found an illustrator online, and now, "I'm Funny," inspired by her then two-year-old daughter, is printed and available to purchase. 

Since her book was published in June, she's sold about 200 copies.

A second book is already on the way, and she said she's humbled that so many families are finding joy in something that just started as her passion to write and her love of kids.