The truth is, it’s not working.  And the crowd of over 100 educators who attended the EBLI presentation got the truth.  Nora began by speaking about the EBLI Secondary Training and why high school students need more than comprehension work:  the majority of our secondary students lack foundational reading skills.  Training comprehension when students don’t have those basic skills is the equivalent of “moving around furniture to fix the crumbling walls in the house.”  It simply doesn’t work.

High school teacher Brady Lake followed Nora by presenting the impressive gains his students made on the ACT after receiving EBLI instruction.  He caught the attention of the audience when he asked them to raise their hands if they knew the reading levels of every student in their respective schools.  When only 5 hands went in the air, he told them frankly, “That is a big problem.”

Ron Reed and his assistant principal John Tafelski then shared their school’s model of using EBLI – every 9th grader in the building is required to take an EBLI class.  They recognized that fact that because most middle and high school students aren’t reading to their highest potential, it is impossible for their teachers to effectively teach all of the required content.

It was clear that the presentation was a wake-up call to the audience, and they were receptive and enthusiastic.  By the time they left, they understood that secondary teachers must teach reading, despite the required paradigm shift.  They understood that EBLI is here to turn the situation around and they no longer have to feel helpless as educators.  When the presentation concluded, there was a rush of people asking how they could get EBLI in their schools.

Seeing the reactions of the audience members made me realize that the EBLI staff aren’t the only ones who see the necessity of change in education.  And the more people there are who are aware of that, the closer we are to teaching the world to read.  Congratulations to Nora and many thanks to fellow presenters Mark Thomas, Brady Lake, Ron Reed, and John Tafelski for helping to get our message out to the world.

I try to imagine what it must be like for her to go to school in the morning.  She probably sees her school day as a huge mountain she cannot scale.  She has told me numerous times that she’s “a bad reader,” and that’s just how it is.  She is only seven years old, and yet she has already formed a negative opinion of herself that is taking an exceptional amount of time to undo, in spite of her progress.  She can now read multi-syllable words, spell words correctly, and read books she’s never seen.

She’s seven years old, in second grade.  I think of those in fifth grade, seventh grade, twelfth grade, college, beyond.  I have met many of them.  How hardened their negative perceptions of themselves have become.  And not because they’re unintelligent; that is absolutely untrue.  They struggle because they simply haven’t been given the information they need.  

I have a habit of checking in with myself once in awhile about the choices in my life and internally asking, “Why am I doing this?”  Just to let myself know whether or not my intentions and actions are in line.  Sometimes the answers come slowly, or I don’t like them, or I find I have no answers.  But when I ask myself why am I working for Ounce of Prevention and EBLI, the answer comes instantaneously: I cannot fathom living a life in which reading is anything less than a joy.  To me books have always been priceless and reading is something that, especially as I get older, is a treat.  The fact that it causes anyone pain or negatively affects their self esteem is my call to action.

Teaching these children, teenagers, and adults to read is the easy part.  With EBLI, we now have the information necessary to so quickly and effectively.  For that, I’m grateful every day for Nora and her passion and the fact that I was lucky enough to be born her daughter.  The difficult part is helping learners to change their minds and form positive opinions about reading and their own worth.  If every child were effectively taught to read when it was supposed to happen, before the negativity sets in, I believe that the English-speaking world would be a very different place.  That is why I’m doing this: because if my efforts bring quality reading instruction to even one more person, changes can be made.  So bring it on, 2012, because EBLI is teaching the world to read!

Over the past year, word of EBLI and the unprecedented gains that students experience with EBLI instruction has spread like wildfire through education circles in Michigan and beyond. This has resulted in a huge increase in demand for EBLI trainings.  Much of my focus has been on figuring out how to scale up EBLI to expand the number of trainees, and thus students, that we can reach without sacrificing the quality and integrity of the system.  Great strides have been made in this area!  Cricket McCarthy, who has been with EBLI and Ounce of Prevention Reading Center since 2004 and is an expert EBLI interventionist and consultant, has begun teaching trainings.   We have videotaped all of our trainings and are creating a model to bring on other expert EBLI teachers to become EBLI trainers.   Wendy Miller, reading specialist for the 42 charter schools chartered by Grand Valley State University and EBLI teacher since 2005, will be the first from outside our center to go through the certification process to become an EBLI trainer and help pilot the new model.

Last year I helped the Heart of West Michigan United Way write a grant to use EBLI exclusively as an SES provider.  We have trained their first group of tutors and they will begin working with students in January.  The HWMUW has a strong focus on literacy and we look forward to working with them and assisting them in their literacy goals.

This past year, in conjunction with the Future Midwest Conference that Jordan founded and was in charge of, we held the first Teach the World to Read summit at the Book Cadillac in Detroit.  I invited about 50 people from around the country whom I felt were innovative and at the leading edge of bringing literacy instruction that actually works out to the masses.  There were over 40 attendees, from authors to educators, from administrators to parents, foundation presidents to adult tutors, hailing from across Michigan as well as from locales around the country such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, and California.  What a powerful day we experienced!!  Hopefully, this will become an annual event, expanded to include even more literacy missionaries.

As I am sure most everyone has noticed, the landscape of education has morphed dramatically this past year and promises to continue to do so.  I am hopeful that the changes, whether perceived as positive or negative, will be instrumental in accelerating the progress of getting the research-based literacy instruction that works out to the masses.   Whether through public, private, or charter schools, community organizations, or adult literacy programs, every citizen in our country deserves the basic human right of being taught how to read and write to their highest potential.  I resolve, this new year, to continue to do all that I possibly can to bring that goal closer to reality.  A very happy new year to all and special thanks to all of you ‘literacy missionaries’ who vow to do the same!