About Me
Certified EBLI Instructor
My name is Ellen Robinson, and I am a mother, wife, and educator. I have over 20 years of experience in education as a 4th grade teacher, nonprofit program director, full-time mother, substitute teacher, and most recently, literacy tutor.
I believe deeply in the importance of proficient reading and writing skills. My children are both voracious readers, which has given them extraordinary access to knowledge, vocabulary, creative worlds, and the simple pleasure of curling up under a blanket with a really good book.
I am a certified Evidence Based Literacy Instruction (EBLI) tutor, which means I am using an efficient approach to remediate reading, writing, handwriting and spelling for anyone aged 5 to adult. You can read more about the EBLI approach below, but know that it is structured, systematic, and phonics-based without the heavy cognitive load that comes with rules-based instruction that many programs use as their foundation for literacy intervention.
If you are interested in learning more about what tutoring at Take Root Learning looks like, please check out my FAQs page or fill out the Contact form so we can get started.
What is EBLI?
EBLI is the acronym for Evidence Based Literacy Instruction, grounded in the research of Diane McGuinness, who wrote Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It. It is a speech to print (linguistic phonics) approach that utilizes what children learn naturally, speech, and applies it to the English written code, which must be taught.
After decades of teaching thousands of students and educators, EBLI’s scope and sequence is refined to make it:
Structured and Systematic
EBLI uses a framework that teaches these principles:
- English sounds can be represented by 1, 2, 3, or 4 letter spellings.
- English sounds can be represented by different spellings, like the /ai/ in stay, they, weigh, train, and gate.
- English spellings can represent different sounds, like the <ch> in school, chase, and chute
It also teaches simple strategies for decoding and spelling multisyllabic words. Handwriting is a crucial component of reading fluency and is integrated if needed as well.
Adaptable
The EBLI approach can be used for early childhood through adulthood. In addition to the texts provided, EBLI educators can teach the basic principles and fundamental strategies with any authentic text that is at a student’s instructional level and of interest to them. Decodable texts are used briefly for the youngest readers before moving in to real books that catch their interest.
Engaging
EBLI has an enjoyable cadence to it that keeps students moving along quickly without fancy gimmicks. Activities and routines are varied enough to keep students interested, but consistent enough to create comfort and familiarity. If ever a brain is getting tired, we give it a quick break with some type of movement to strengthen the brain/body connection.
Rooted in the Science of Reading and Learning
There is a very intentional interleaving of skills that allow a student to move on to other concepts before others are “mastered”. This is a big reason why students get to authentic texts faster than other approaches that rely on memorization of rules. EBLI also functions in a way to reduce cognitive load, which can be such a relief for individuals already emotionally exhausted by literacy struggles.
To Learn More
For the most thorough explanation of EBLI, please check out EBLI's website.
