An Interview of Nora Chahbazi, founder of EBLI: An evidenced-based reading program that uses linguistic phonics. – Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

In the past year, I have tried to examine a variety of perspectives on reading, especially beginning reading. I’ve interviewed many literacy leaders such as Tim Rasinski, Narelle Lynch and Rachael Gabriel LINK, LINK,  LINK. Check this blog’s sidebar under the interview category to find all the others I’ve interviewed. This week I’m talking to Nora Chahbazi, founder of Evidence Based Literacy Instruction. Hers is an amazing story. She began by working with her daughter, but she also wanted to help others. That desire led to the creation of EBLI. 

Here is Nora’s biography taken from the EBLI website:

Nora is a believer in the Science of Reading. She and I don’t agree on everything. But from the time I first visited with her, she has always been willing to talk and share ideas LINK. At the start of the interview, I alluded to the fact that of all the SOR sites I’ve looked at, hers is one of the very few that can demonstrate that their methods improve BOTH decoding and comprehension. She measures her results with tests of the full reading process rather than tests that measure mainly decoding. In addition, she gets phonics taught very quickly and very efficiently. To do that, she takes a road less traveled. She makes use of linguistic phonics instead of focusing on more traditional approaches e.g. OG. There is a link about linguistic phonics later in this blog.

Here is the interview:

Here are the questions we discussed in the interview. They are time-stamped, so you can easily find them on the YouTube Video: 

Set One What do you think the term Science of Reading means? How has the science or research on reading/literacy informed your teaching with EBLI? Tell me about your explicit instruction and how you gradually release students to independent reading and writing.	03:23
Set Two Is this instruction done in whole class, small group, or intervention? Is it used for intervention/remediation? How much intervention is necessary for students to be able to read independently in trade books? To write and spell accurately and adequately?	05:00
Set Three How is it possible for the instruction to move so quickly? How is speech first decoding instruction different from traditional phonics?	07:00
Set Four The DocumentaryHow do you incorporate comprehension and higher-level thinking in your instruction? What recipe or ingredients do you think are critical to ensuring high-level literacy for all?	16:56
Final Thoughts	19:00

Here are links that go along with the topics covered in the interview:

• Speech to Print vs. Print to Speech webinar: more effective, efficient decoding and encoding instruction LINK
• Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It by Diane McGuinness LINK
• Reading Reflex for parents to teach their children, what I used to teach my daughter in 1997 LINK
• The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read by John Corcoran LINK
• The Reading Gap by John Corcoran LINK
• EBLI Webinars LINK
• What is Linguistic Phonics? LINK

Here is a link to EBLI’s overall website. The website is worth exploring LINK. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how large her project has grown and the wide range of resources she provides for educators, parents, and students. Notice she has just been interviewed by the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Her desire to help folks with literacy is being noticed in a very positive way.  

Dr. Sam’s thoughts about this interview & a peek at future topics. As I mentioned initially, I have been talking to or writing about folks from all across the reading spectrum during the past two years. I am a centrist. I am making the case that we need to listen to ideas and findings from all sides of the reading issue. The way Nora carries out and promotes her program at EBLI represents a way of proceeding with Science of Reading that holds hope for eventually finding common sense and common ground. She demonstrates that there are ways to teach phonics effectively that don’t fit the mold some are trying to force on us all. Nora is not trying to force her views on anyone. Everyone would benefit from learning more about the “flagship of her fleet,” linguistic phonics.

I’ll continue to explore what other literacy leaders have to say in the coming weeks. Next week someone else will do all the talking. I’ll be posting a guest blog from Laura Robb’s site (THANKS SO MUCH, LAURA). You’ll want to read that blog for sure! So- until next time, Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who talks to folks from all sides in order to inform his teaching

Copyright 2022 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

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