EBLI Supporter of the Week: Wendy Somers
Wendy is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Fruitport Schools in Fruitport, MI. She was introduced to Nora and EBLI in 2002, and was a huge skeptic at first. At the time she was the Administrator of one of the elementary schools in Hart, MI, and had no interest in any programs that focused on “worksheet phonics.” (She has since learned that that is not what EBLI is about.) Despite her reservations, Wendy knew she had an obligation to try something new because her school had many learners reading below grade level.
Wendy asked an EBLI-trained staff member to use EBLI with a pilot group of first graders to test the impact of the instruction for six weeks. She was blown away by the results: the pre/post data of the Woodcock Reading Mastery subtests were astounding to her. Wendy also noted that the EBLI strategies were logical and quick to learn, in addition to utilizing authentic text in every session. All of the children were reading more accurately, including the ESL (English as a second language) students. Their fluency and comprehension improved as well. From that point on, Wendy was sold on EBLI.
Wendy recently finished The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read by John Corcoran. She is now all the more impassioned that all pre-K through second grade students should receive EBLI as the foundation to their reading instruction. Wendy also feels strongly that students beyond second grade who are stuck at a lower level of reading need to have access to EBLI in order to catch up. She believes that these steps would ensure that all students would be able to read and spell to their highest potential. Wendy is now a firm advocate of EBLI and is working hard to spread EBLI throughout the Fruitport school system. On behalf of everyone at OOPRC, thank you Wendy for your continual support!
“EBLI can easily be embedded into every reading/writing program out there! However, it also means we must be willing to let go of some old practices and honestly admit they don’t work-guessing at unknown words being one of them.” – Wendy
Wendy invites anyone interested to contact her for more information about her story. Her email address is wsomers@fruitportschools.net.
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I’m a school board member of Hart Public schools, the distict Wendy worked in when she discovered EBLI. Since she left HPS I’ve tracked MEAP scores of the original students that were taught Ebli skills. Largely immigrant hispanic and economically disadvantaged they have outperformed the other schools from wealthier districts in our athletic conference. Last year we had 17 of these original students still in our district. From this small number of students we had a first and third place winner in the scripps-howard spelling bee. The winner, having beat the best spellers from our three county ISD went on to make a respectable showing at the national spelling bee.
Congratulations to you and the students Nick, that is so exciting!
As a principal in Fruitport, and a former Hart teacher, I can speak to the gains I have seen students make. EBLI strategies integrated into teaching and learning help all involved understand and comprehend the English language much better. EBLI strategies and training assist professionals in being diagnostic.
Thank you so much for your support, Julie!