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Developing Better ReadersA Family, Community,
and School Responsibility

• Jon Reyhner, March 11, 2005
• Northern Arizona University
• http//jan.ucc.nau.edu/jar

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Indian agent and teacher Albert H. Kneale (1950)
remembered monotonous lessons at the turn of the
century boarding school where he worked in
Oklahoma Few of the pupils had any desire to
learn to read, for there was nothing to read in
their homes When he started teaching in 1899,
Kneale found the Indian Bureau, at that time,
went on the assumption that any Indian custom
was, per se, objectionable, whereas the customs
of whites were the ways of civilization.
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Lori Arviso Alvord, MD Dr. Arviso Alvord, the
first Navajo woman surgeon and now an Associate
Dean at Dartmouth Medical School, is an example
of academic success for Indian students. In her
1999 autobiography The Scalpel and the Silver
Bear she writes,
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Cultural Cleansing In their childhoods both my
father and my grandmother had been punished for
speaking Navajo in school. Navajos were told by
white educators that, in order to be successful,
they would have to forget their language and
culture and adopt American ways. They were warned
that if they taught their children to speak
Navajo, the children would have a harder time
learning in school, and would therefore be at a
disadvantage.
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Racism A racist attitude existed. Navajo
children were told that their culture and
lifeways were inferior, and they were made to
feel they could never be as good as white
people. My father suffered terribly from these
events and conditions. He had been a straight-A
student and was sent away to one of the best prep
schools in the state. He wanted to be like the
rich white children who surround him there, but
the differences were too apparent.
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Dr. Arviso Alvord concludes that two or three
generations of our tribe had been taught to feel
shame about our culture, and parents had often
not taught their children traditional Navajo
beliefsthe very thing that would have shown them
how to live, the very thing that could keep them
strong.
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Resilience Persistence Dr. Arviso Alvords
road to becoming a doctor was not easy. She
writes, I made good grades in high school, but I
had received a very marginal education. I had a
few good teachers, but teachers were difficult to
recruit to our schools and they often didnt stay
long. Funding was inadequate. I spent many hours
in classrooms where, I now see, very little was
being taught. She was encouraged by a friend to
apply to Dartmouth.
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The Importance of Reading Dr. Arviso Alvords
education in Crownpoint Public Schools left her
totally unprepared for the physical and life
sciences. After receiving the only D of my entire
life in calculus, I retreated from the sciences
altogether. What saved her was her strong
reading background. She writes, I read my way
through the tiny local library and the vans that
came to our community from the Books on Wheels
program, encouraged by her parents to read and
dream. She could even get out of chores by
reading.
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Median Earnings in 2001 by Educational
LevelSource Postsecondary Education Opportunity
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Unemployment Rate in 2001Source Postsecondary
Education Opportunity
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Average Grade 4 Reading Score Results for the
Nation
SOURCE National Center for Education Statistics,
National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), 19922000 Reading Assessments.
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Reading Score Percentiles Grade 4
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The most basic educational skill is reading. The
most basic obligation of any school is to teach
reading President George W. Bush
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Reading First is a national effort to make EVERY
child a proficient reader
Not Eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch
Eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch
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Basic Premises of Reading First

• All but a very small number of children can be
  taught to be successful readers
• Prevention of reading problems is far more cost
  effective and efficient than remediation
• Reading failure can be prevented by relying on
  the extensive scientific research base in reading

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How will Reading First help schools and teachers
produce successful readers?

• By focusing on high quality, comprehensive K-3
  reading instruction for all children
• By basing instructional decisions on a what
  works basis
• By putting the solid research base on reading
  into the hands of teachers

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SOURCE National Center for Education Statistics,
National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), 19922000 Reading Assessments.
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Phonics not a Panacea An evaluation of reading
achievement around the world found that time
spent in voluntary reading was a strong predictor
of reading achievement along with reading in
class, reading material in the school, having a
classroom library, borrowing more books from
libraries, comprehension instruction, number of
books per student in the school library, and
emphasis on literature. Phonics was far down on
the list (41).
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The Role of Phonics The National Reading Panel
concluded phonics instruction produces the
biggest impact on growth in reading when it
begins in kindergarten or 1st grade before
children have learned to read independently and
it failed to exert a significant impact on the
reading performance of low-achieving readers in
2nd through 6th grades. The panel also noted
that, it is important to emphasize that
systematic phonics instruction should be
integrated with other reading instruction to
create a balanced reading program.
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The National Reading Panels report notes that
phonics instruction is never a total reading
program. Phonics should not become the dominant
component in a reading program, neither in amount
of time devoted to it nor in the significance
attached (p. 2-97). The Panel also noted that
researchers had not paid attention to
motivational factors for both students and
teachers. The Panel found that their was common
agreement that fluency develops from reading
practice (p. 3-1).
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Oppositional Identities Mick Fedullo in Light of
the Feather Pathways Through Contemporary Indian
America (1992) illustrates a case of cultural
conflict with a quote from an Apache elder who
stated that students parents had been to school
in their day, and what that usually meant was a
bad BIA boarding school. And all they remember
about school is that there were all these Anglos
trying to make them forget they were Apaches
trying to make them turn against their parents,
telling them that Indian ways were evil.
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Well, a lot of those kids came to believe that
their teachers were the evil ones, and so
anything that had to do with education was also
evillike books. Those kids came back to the
reservation, got married, and had their own kids.
And now they dont want anything to do with the
white mans education. The only reason they send
their kids to school is because its the law. But
they tell their kids not to take school
seriously. So, to them, printed stuff is
white-man stuff.
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Teachers who have been responsive to their
students have been more successful than those who
have slavishly taught from textbooks and
curriculums that may or may not reflect the
culture of their students. It is long past time
to remember what Luther Standing Bear declared
in 1933 about young Indians needing to be doubly
educated so that they learned to appreciate
both their traditional life and modern life.
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The 2001 Reading and the Native American Learner
Research Report concluded current research
suggests that the relatively low level of
academic success among American Indian elementary
and secondary school students, as a group, is
largely the result of discon-tinuities between
the cultures and language of these students
homes and the communities and the language and
culture of mainstream classrooms. American Indian
students also tend to perceive academic success
as offering few extrinsic rewards, and they are
likely to view learning much of what is necessary
to succeed academically (such as the standard
language and the standard behavior practices of
the school) as detrimental to their own language,
culture, and identity.
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• Family members need to get involved in reading to
  their preschool children, especially reading
  bedtime stories, and by their actions
  demonstrate to their children that they embrace
  literacy as an important part of life.

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2. Except for the few students who enter
kindergarten already knowing how to read, schools
need a strong program of beginning reading
instruction that teaches the alphabet, promotes
phonemic awareness, promotes the application of
phonic rules that have broad utility and that fit
the students dialect of English, and teaches
high frequency sight words that dont follow
common phonic rules. Teachers need to make sure
through language experience or other instruction
that the words students are asked to read/decode
are in their oral vocabulary.
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3. Students need frequent opportunities, in and
out of school, to read interesting books
reflecting their own experiential/cultural
background as well as classic works of children's
literature. It is critical that the process of
teaching of reading does not take the joy out of
reading by making reading instruction a matter of
completing worksheets and decoding stories that
the students cannot relate to or find boring.
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Navajo Dropout Study
Five Top Reasons Students Give for Dropping Out
of School
1. Bored with school 2. Problems with other
students 3. Retained in grade owing to
absenteeism 4. Pregnancy/Marriage 5. Problems
with teachers
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Navajo Dropout Study
Top Five Reasons School Administrators and Staff
Gave
1. Lack of parent/family support and
encouragement 2. Academic problems and
performance 3. Home family problems, home
duties 4. Lack of interest in education 5. No
incentive to finish curriculum does not meet
their needs
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Supporting and Recruiting Quality School Teachers

• We're asking a lot of our nation's
  schoolteachers.
• America is facing a growing shortage of qualified
  teachers. (2.2 million new teachers needed in
  next 10 years).
• Teachers should be treated and supported like the
  professionals they are.

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Dr. Sandra Fox Oglala Sioux educator Dr.
Sandra Fox in her Creating Sacred Places for
Students curriculum asserts that reading to
children is the single most important activity
that parents can provide to help their children
succeed in school. For teachers, she makes the
following recommendations
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• Use reading materials that relate to childrens
  lives, to help them understand that literature is
  experience written down and that it is
  interesting to read.

• Strengthen and expand childrens language
  abilities by providing them many opportunities to
  have new experiences, to learn new words, and to
  practice oral language in English and in their
  Native language.

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My dislike of school started somewhere around
the second month of first grade. My parentsand
God Bless Them Forever for doing thishad taught
me to read and write by the time I was four. So
when I entered St. Johns Elementary school, I
had to sit and feign interest while the other
kids, like robots, sang, A-B-C-D-E-F-G... Now I
know my ABCs, tell me what you think of me!
Every time I heard that line, I wanted to scream
out, Heres what I think of youquit singing
that damn song!... I was bored beyond belief.
(p. 95) Michael Moore. 2001. Stupid White Men
and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the
Nation!
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For kids who are exposed to books at home, the
loss of a library is sad. But for kids who come
from environments where people dont read, the
loss of a library is a tragedy that might keep
them from every discovering the joys of reador
gathering the kind of information that will
decide their lot in life. Jonathan Kozol...has
observed that school libraries remain the
clearest window to a world of noncommercial
satisfactions and enticements that most children
in poor neighborhoods will ever know. (p.
104) Michael Moore. 2001. Stupid White Men and
Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!
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My conclusions are simple. When children read
for pleasure, when they get hooked on books,
they acquire, involuntarily and without conscious
effort, nearly all of the so-called language
skills many people are so concerned about They
will become adequate readers, acquire a large
vocabulary, develop the ability to understand and
use complex grammatical instructions, develop a
good writing style, and become good (but not
necessarily perfect) spellers. Although free
voluntary reading alone will not ensure
attainment of the highest levels of literacy, it
will at least ensure an acceptable level. Without
it, I suspect that children simply do not have a
chance. Stephen Krashen, The Power of Reading,
p. 84
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Five Things to Look For in an Effective Reading
Program for Minority Students 1. Language
Activity. Students (especially English as a
Second Language Students) reading and talking.
Students need multiple chances to read and talk
in the classroom to develop their language
skills. Students should read every day and
teachers should read stories to students. (By
reading to students, teachers can expose students
to more advanced material to wet their interest
in reading, and the use of Sustained Silent
Reading can provide students the practice they
need to become fluent readers.) 2. Profitable
Decoding. Because of the differences between
Spanish and English and the fact English
consonants are more regular than English vowels,
teaching English consonant sounds and their
letter equivalents can help Spanish L1 students
read better.
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3. Quality Reading Material. High interest
reading material readily available in the
classroom on a variety of topics at a variety of
reading levels, including reading material from a
variety of cultures (especially those cultures
reflecting the students backgrounds). 4. Pre-
and Post-Reading Activities. Teachers doing
pre-reading activities to introduce vocabulary
and activate students prior knowledge on the
subject of a story before students read and
followup activities after students read, such as
having students retell the story they have read
to a reading buddy or writing about the story
they read in a literature log. 5. Experientially
Culturally Appropriate Reading Material.
Students writing with their teacher language
experience stories and/or making their own books
that can be used for reading lessons.
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How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading John
Holt From the very beginning of school we make
books and reading a constant source of possible
failure and public humiliation. When children are
little we make them read aloud, before the
teacher and other children, so that we can be
sure they know all the words they are reading.
This means that when they dont know a word, they
are going to make a mistake, right in front of
everyone. Instantly they are made to realize they
have done something wrong. Perhaps some of the
other children will begin to wave their hands and
say, Ooooh! O-o-o-oh! Perhaps they will just
giggle, or nudge each other, or make a face.
Perhaps the teacher will say, Are you sure? or
ask someone else what he thinks. Or perhaps, if
the teacher is kindly, she will just smile a
sweet, sad smileoften one of the most painful
punishments a child can suffer in school. In any
case, the child who has made the mistake knows he
has made it, and feels foolish, stupid, and
ashamed, just as any of us would in his shoes.
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Before long many children associate books and
reading with mistakes, real or feared, and
penalties and humiliation. We learn to write by
writing, not by reading other peoples ideas
about writing. What most students need above all
else is practice in writing, and particularly in
writing about things that matter to them, so that
they will begin to feel the satisfaction that
comes from getting important thoughts down in
words and will care about setting these thoughts
forcefully and clearly. Teachers of Englishor,
as some schools say (ugh!), Language Artsspend a
lot of time and effort on spelling. Most of it is
wasted it does little good, and often more harm
than good. We should ask ourselves, How do good
spellers spell? What do they do when they are not
sure which spelling of a word is right? I have
asked this of a number of good spellers. Their
answer never varies. They do not rush for a
dictionary or rack their brains trying to
remember some rules. They write down the word
both ways, or several ways, look at them and pick
the one that looks best. Usually they are right.
Good spellers know what words look like