Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nora Chahbazi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Nora , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I’m an ‘accidental’ business owner. Previously, I was a Neonatal ICU nurse but my bright, creative daughter’s reading difficulties changed the course of my life. Back in 1997, when she was in 2nd grade, Colleen was in the 98th %ile in Math on a national assessment but a year below grade level in reading. Her spelling was horrific. Emotionally, she was beaten down and defeated. After doggedly learning about how to help her, I taught her to read in 3 hours. After that, almost everyone I talked to had a child (or two) who was sub-literate. Many of them came to my house so I could teach them too, on a volunteer basis. My then-husband, a doctor, planned to open a wellness center and suggested I start teaching people there instead of in our den. A month before opening, his wellness center fell through and I had a reading center. I began training teachers and had students for me, as well as my staff, to teach from early morning to night. All our advertising, for teachers and students, was word of mouth. I created EBLI: Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction, an effective, efficient, comprehensive system of literacy instruction for learners of all ages and ability levels. We have trained thousands of teachers. Who would ever suspect that teachers are not taught how to teach reading in college? Horrifying, but true. I have been dedicated to EBLI’s mission to teach the world to read for 25 years now!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
This blog tells my story quite well if you want to pull from it: https://eblireads.com/meet-the-ebli-founder/ Be sure and watch the video in the blog – I share very honestly and vulnerably in it.
Also, I was deeply involved as a volunteer consultant in the making of the Truth About Reading documentary – here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mgv0cw9tCg Screenings have begun for the film and it has been submitted to film festivals but isn’t available to the public yet. This documentary is going to change the face of literacy around the world!
EBLI, Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction is a revolutionary, effective, efficient system of instruction for students of any age, and teacher training is provided for classroom and remediation teachers. EBLI is in schools across the US and around the world. EBLI provides comprehensive, integrated instruction in the 5 essential components of reading as well as handwriting, spelling, and writing. Unlike traditional phonics, which is oriented around letters, rules, and practices that overwhelm many teachers and learners, EBLI teaches from a Say, Spell, Read perspective- also commonly referred to as Speech to Print, Linguistic Phonics, or Speech First – where we teach the code starting with what students bring with them to school: the words they speak. Because of the methodology with EBLI, student literacy progress and achievement are greatly accelerated. We also focus on making teachers’ lives easier by providing them with everything they need, removing the need for planning and streamlining instruction so they are able to apply their art and get their students accurately and automatically reading, writing, and spelling.
We also have apps and other supplemental resources but the main focus of EBLI is on our teacher training. We do have a clinic where we teach learners who struggle with reading but we would prefer they get this instruction in school, from the beginning, to eradicate the need for remediation. Anxiety, trauma, and many negative outcomes are prevalent among those who are sub-literate and blocked from participating fully in society because of it.
I am most proud of how EBLI positively changes the trajectory of a person’s live – whether learner or teacher. Our mission is to teach the world to read and I am very proud of every step we make in that direction.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I am different than most business owners in that I never had the desire to own a business and I have learned everything I know about owning a business (which still, 23 years later, has room for improvement!) by trial and error. Because I am unwavering that our #1 goal remains firmly on what is best for students and teachers, with revenue 2nd, any business partners who came on did not last long. I have always known that doing the right thing for the right reasons was paramount in this critical area of literacy.
My entire journey has been about resilience. This business (actually, I have 2 businesses, EBLI, our teacher training, and Ounce of Prevention Reading Center, our remediation instruction) should have failed repeatedly. Most of these 23 years we have lacked financial resources but always managed to stay afloat. While there have been many high points, there have been struggles every step of the way. I absolutely refused to sacrifice the quality of EBLI, something that is the norm with educational products. Because of this, the journey to success – which we are currently experiencing for many reasons, mostly because the time is right in the literacy community for true change to happen and we are ready to facilitate that- has been slow and tedious and disheartening and difficult. In spite of that, I have never seriously thought about abandoning this literacy mission. It is just too important.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I first began teaching teachers and students, I was giddy about how much things were going to change in education when they (the educators, administrators, etc) saw the rapid progress of the students. What I had to ‘unlearn’ was my thinking that improved outcomes would affect positive change. It actually went the opposite direction. Teachers and Principals who experienced atypical gains with their students were shunned and reprimanded and oftentimes quit. I had to unlearn what I thought was important in the education system about literacy instruction and realize that is was mostly about power, politics, ego, and money with very little focus or concern on teachers and students.
I realize this may sound a bit crazy to read (!) so I strongly suggest you listen to this recently released APM podcast series (most episodes are 30 min long) about how reading is taught in the US. You will be transfixed, shocked, angry, and unable to quit listening – I promise. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ebli.com
- Instagram: eblireads
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EBLIreads
- Linkedin: EBLI Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction
- Twitter: @EBLIreads
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/EBLItube