At 3 p.m. every day, doctoral candidate Amy Morris stands at the door of a tiny school in tiny Piñon, Arizona. The kids have just spent seven hours in school. Some face a two-hour bus ride home over roads that can get so muddy that school is cancelled. Rounding them up for extra tutoring can be a hard sell, but the effort is paying off.
Morris immersed herself in life on the Navajo Reservation to study the effects of a reading intervention program, called Next Steps, for Native American students. The students in this program have reading levels two or more years behind where they should be for their grade.
Receiving the President's Graduate Research Fellowship enabled Morris to live in Piñon, about three hours north of Flagstaff, while finishing her doctorate.
The one-on-one tutoring program has been successful in other schools with struggling readers as well as students learning English as a second language. This is the first time the program has been used at Piñon Elementary, where many of the students speak Navajo — not English — at home.
The program serves about 25 students in grades three through five who are tutored by a dozen parent volunteers trained and supervised by Morris. "Although the tutors have limited education and some haven't graduated from high school, they are able to be effective in helping these struggling readers," Morris says.
Students develop reading skills through word games and by reading older books, which Morris finds in thrift stores or buys off the Internet. According to Morris, the books used to teach reading changed in the late 1980s, focusing more on creative stories rather than decodable text. Morris believes the older texts helps students build the reading skills they need. The books used in this program have controlled vocabulary and progressively difficult stories.
Changing Lives One at a Time
Because the project demands most of her
time and attention, the fellowship she
received has provided great financial relief.
She is the first student from the College
of Education to receive the fellowship. "If
it weren't for the fellowship, it would be
impossible for me to do this research. I
wouldn't be out there," Morris says.
The fellowship pays tuition, program materials, and her living costs in Piñon, where she lives in housing for teachers located right behind the school. "Some of the perks are there is no pollution and no traffic," she says. "But there is not much to do."
The lack of leisure activities in town isn't a problem for Morris, who has more than enough work to keep her busy. During the school day, she plans lessons for each tutor to give to the students, meets with teachers, and does other schoolrelated tasks. She individually tutors two students with especially low reading levels for 45 minutes daily.
Some students get frustrated because of their lack of reading skills. "There have been some really challenging situations," Morris says. "When you're in the fifth grade and read on a first-grade level, school is really not enjoyable for you."
For the most part, however, Morris finds that the students are excited about the program because they are seeing their success. One child came in at a kindergarten reading level at the beginning of the school year, and half way through the program is already up to a second-grade level.
"I know it's changing their lives," Morris says. "They are getting help they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. They'll have the literacy they need to get a job and succeed in school, and maybe even go on to college."
Accelerating Research
Morris got involved with the Navajo community
after talking with Jane McCarthy,
interim dean of the College of Education.
The college has worked with the Piñon
schools for eight years under the Accelerated
Schools Program. The school-reform
program provides professional development
to the teachers in 19 at-risk schools
in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.
On the Navajo Reservation, UNLV professors have worked with school staff to develop a challenging curriculum. In 2006, a high school in the program had the highest percentage of academic gain of any reservation school.
"It's a different experience growing up on the reservation," Morris says. "Some of the students come to school with limited English skills, which makes it hard for them to learn to read. I got involved because the opportunity to work in that environment would be different and a chance to really help people."
The reading program runs through the end of the year, but Morris will stay to work with students during summer school and train her replacement to run the program next year.
After completing her doctorate next May, Morris plans to find a position where she can teach at the college level and continue to do research related to reading.
