In 1997, my daughter Colleen was in 2nd grade. Her math score on the Iowa test was so high (98th percentile) that she was placed into her school’s Gifted and Talented program. On the same test, however, her reading was a year below grade level. Her spelling was also atrocious; a school writing piece of hers, posted in the hall with half of the words significantly misspelled, was another indicator of her literacy struggles. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to read that writing piece, wondering what was wrong with my child. The principal told me her reading and spelling difficulties were attributed to our recent move to Michigan from Guam. He also said her dad was a doctor so she’d be fine.
MEET THE FOUNDER – NORA’S STORY
From Nurse to Literacy Champion
At that time, I’d been a Neonatal ICU nurse for over a decade. That conversation with the principal dramatically changed the course of my life.
After six months of reading books and research on reading instruction, observing programs in schools, attending reading conferences, and obsessing about literacy, my own mother led me to a former College of Education professor who owned a reading center. When I called the professor, she told me that in 12 hours of instruction she was getting students proficient at reading and out of Special Education. To say I was skeptical would be putting it mildly!
This woman had a PhD and had taught teachers-to-be for decades. She told me the research is solid. It showed exactly what one needs to do to teach anyone to read to their highest potential but it wasn’t being taught to educators in college. For this reason, she was no longer a college professor and instead opened a reading center. She was insistent on doing the right thing, even though it was a more challenging direction to take.
On her recommendation I read the book Why Our Children Can’t Read And What We Can Do About It by Diane McGuinness. I was able to teach my daughter to read in 3 hours. I realize that sounds absurd, but it is true. Colleen went on to be a voracious reader, an exceptional student through high school, graduated from college with honors, and is now a highly successful, highly literate professional in the Chicago area. Read her story here.
Then What Happened?
After teaching Colleen, I taught many of my friends’ children in my home then ended up rather accidentally opening a reading center in 1999. I did so without any formal instruction or experience in business; my ‘formal’ experience in education was limited to having been a substitute teacher in the schools on the military base in Cuba.
A few years after opening Ounce of Prevention Reading Center, I created EBLI.
EBLI is an explicit, systematic, effective, efficient system of reading, spelling, and writing instruction based on research and the Science of Reading. EBLI instruction is ideal for students young to old, non-reader to great reader, and is taught by EBLI trained educators in whole class (Tier 1) or remediation (Tier 2 and Tier 3) instruction.
I’ve spent much of my time over the past two decades providing in-person EBLI training to K-12 and adult educators then coaching them in their classrooms or instructional setting. In recent years, my focus and that of our EBLI team has been to systematize the teacher training, coaching and student instruction via online delivery. Now anyone of any background, anywhere in the world, can learn how to teach EBLI and have the curriculum, support, and resources at their fingertips to teach all of their students.
What is Next?
Now that our online EBLI Teacher Training and Student Instruction (ETSL) for both classroom and remediation teachers is complete and scalable, the EBLI team and I are ready to accelerate our progress toward the lofty goal of teaching the world to read.
I gained new insight on virtual student instruction when the pandemic first hit. Twice a week, I taught free online EBLI lessons to K-3rd grade children worldwide after schools first closed. Over 3500 families signed up for these lessons and we received a tremendous response from parents about the effectiveness of the instruction. This experience made me aware of what is possible with effective, explicit, engaging, interactive online literacy instruction direct to students. Who knows where that will lead moving forward? It was something we’d never done before and, to be honest, I was astounded with the results. It was also a great deal of fun!
There are some exciting upcoming projects in progress for me and EBLI. This blog is one of them! Expanding the reach of EBLI through our online ETSL training and lessons for classroom and remediation educators is another. Continuing to support and coach trained teachers will remain a focus, too. Letting more parents and educators know about the availability of our free student lesson recordings as well as our EBLI reading instruction apps is also on the to-do list. I’m currently deeply engaged in the planning of a literacy documentary with John Corcoran and 16 time Emmy winning producer Nick Nanton, due to be released fall of 2021. So much to do, so little time!
My vision, ideally in the not too distant future, is 95-100% reading proficiency in the US and in the English speaking world. I’m passionate about training and supporting educators to effectively and efficiently deliver instruction that leads to high levels of literacy for all of their students. To this point, EBLI has been a grassroots effort and has spread because people who have been impacted by it — teachers, students, parents, administrators — can’t help but tell others about it!
Collaborating with other literacy champions like you, I KNOW we can teach the world to read!
