What I didn’t learn in college

"I realized that what I had been taught to do in college, in my masters classes, my additional 30 credits after my masters, and in district PD was what was actually failing kids. It has been a whirlwind three years, but I finally feel -- after 20 years of teaching -- that with EBLI I finally have the tools I need to teach EVERY child to read."

Julie VanLier

Kindergarten Classroom Teacher

Meet Julie

Julie VanLier is a 21 year veteran educator working at a high-poverty school. She typically has 26-28 Kindergartners in her classroom every year

Life before EBLI

A dedicated, conscientious teacher her entire career, Julie was constantly researching and learning. She taught everything she was told to do, and then some, to teach her young charges to read and write. For the first half of the school year she often worked in her classroom well into the evening, learning more and making materials to enhance her instruction. Even with all her efforts, her students’ reading assessments remained dismal. Though she was skeptical and EBLI sounded too good to be true, her frustration motivated her to pursue the EBLI training.

“Three years ago (pre COVID -- seems like ages ago) - I stumbled across EBLI as I was trying to figure out why my DIBELS scores were so dismal even though I was doing everything I was told to do.”

Julie VanLier

Implementing ETSL Classroom Teacher Training (K-3)

Trying to find a solution to better help her students, Julie stumbled upon EBLI information online. After contacting several teachers who taught EBLI in their classrooms, and with her parent’s offer to help her pay for the EBLI training, she took the leap. After trying to teach EBLI on top of all the other methodology she’d learned previously, she realized that student progress would be greatly accelerated by teaching EBLI with fidelity

Julie VanLier

“(This was) probably the only curriculum I've followed verbatim. I was actually scared when I started teaching it -- if there was a video that we could use of Nora teaching, I always showed that to my class instead of teaching myself. I was absolutely gobsmacked at what I witnessed - these crazy low kinders were writing LOWERCASE letters beautifully! They were READING text!”

The EBLI Impact

For Julie, learning about EBLI and how to teach it was backwards from everything she had ever known about how to teach reading, writing, and spelling. She felt vulnerable about giving up instructional practices that were familiar to her but that she knew were not working for her children. Once she did that and became more proficient at teaching the EBLI process to her students, everything opened up.

Even though many of her students struggle to even hold a pencil at the beginning of the school year, all of them are readers by the end.

“I had no behavior problems - even though EBLI instruction took about 45 minutes and it was intense. My scores are AMAZING -- higher than even the first grade scores at my school.”

JULIE VANLIER

Kindergarten Classroom Teacher

“As an added bonus, I have so much more free time on my hands - I don't have to stay late at school; I don't go in on the weekends anymore to prep all that silly stuff that I thought helped kids become readers. I don't waste my own money on "teacher gimmicks" to "help" kids learn to read. I'm no longer exhausted by teaching!”

JULIE VANLIER

Kindergarten Classroom Teacher

“I thought that EBLI was CRAZY to think kinders could start reading day 11 of school. I tried it this past week – I have 28 kinders in a very high poverty school. I was BLOWN AWAY that the kids WERE decoding/reading!!!!!”
– Julie VanLier

Words of Wisdom

Julie VanLier

“One tip that I have for those interested in EBLI - trust the process. Don't tweak, skip, or rearrange any of the lessons. Don't try to take bits and pieces of EBLI and incorporate them into your old instruction. Teach "straight" EBLI, and you will be amazed at what your kiddos can do by the end of the year.”