Volume 11 Number 1
October 1971

Harry Kersey and Rebecca Fadjo

Throughout 1969-70 school year, Florida Atlantic University conducted a tutorial remedial reading program for Seminole Indian children on the Big Cypress Reservation in Florida. The general parameters of this program have previously been reported in this Journal by Kersey et al (see Note 1). This article deals with one aspect of the research conducted in conjunction with the program: the comparison of a word list derived from the disadvantaged Seminole children with the well-known Dolch Word List.

Word lists of other-than-average children are often compared to lists of words common to most average children of the same age as a basis for evaluating language development. Very often the results of such studies reveal that groups of children thought to be educationally disadvantaged actually have much larger reading vocabularies than educators expected. The key to uncovering the words used by these children is to provide appropriate vehicles for self-expression, such as student-produced reading materials. The approach used with the Indian children was patterned on that used with disadvantaged migrant children at the Robert Markham Elementary School in Pompano Beach, Florida. An examination of a list of words used by migrant children in books which they made revealed that it contained all of the words in the Dolch fist, plus many more (see Note 2). It was assumed that similar results might be obtained with Seminole Indian children.

Approximately 50 of these books were surveyed to compile a Seminole Word List. The result was a list of 539 words which appeared at least three times in five different books; the list contained nouns as well as verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. Thus it was decided to compare the Seminole Word List with both the Dolch 220 Word List, which is comprised of service words, and the Dolch Common Noun List, which includes 95 nouns. Both comparisons yielded interesting results:

A comparison of the Seminole list and the Dolch list showed that the Indian children appeared to be using approximately 33% fewer service words than is normal by the fourth grade. However, at the beginning of the following school year, the same group of Seminole children were tested on the Dolch list, i.e., they were asked to read the list out of context from a typed sheet. As a group the children missed only 32 words, or 14% on this test. Thus, it would appear that the Seminole children in this study are more adept in their mastery of Dolch service words, if not in their use, than was originally indicated. Moreover, the additional 141 service words used in the peer-produced books indicate that the Indian students have a broader vocabulary than the Dolch list alone would have shown.

When comparing the Seminole list and the Dolch list of 95 nouns, the Indian children again appear to be using approximately one-third fewer nouns than is common for their age and grade group. It is important to note that some of the nouns which they omitted, such as hill, sheep, snow, and street, are not part of their cultural pattern; on the other hand, many of the 189 additional nouns found in their stories reflect a growing contact with life outside the reservation via television, field trips, and the like. In the long run this language acquisition is most significant for the educational progress of Seminole children.

What conclusions can be drawn from this research? First, the Seminole elementary school children at Big Cypress display a greater sight reading vocabulary, as measured by the two Dolch lists, than would be expected judging by their previous test scores. This raises the larger question of whether any standardized examinations are ever valid predictors of Indian achievement, but that cannot be dealt with in this brief study. Suffice it to say that in this case the performance of the Seminole children belied the predictors considerably.

The second important finding was that the peer-produced reading materials’ developed by the Indian children provide a viable vehicle for ascertaining an accurate measure of their reading skills. The books also serve as a starting point for the remedial reading program developed by Florida Atlantic University that has worked successfully with these Seminole children. It was noted that Seminole children respond positively to one-to-one tutoring by university students, and in some cases made remarkable progress in their reading. Some type of tutorial program should be continued at Big Cypress for the foreseeable future, preferably utilizing a full-time staff member.

This brief study has pointed up one small area in which the actual performance of Seminole Indian children has surpassed expectations established through achievement testing. In the future additional studies of this type should be continued in order to establish more specific parameters of achievement for this group of Indian youngsters.

1. H. A. Kersey and N. E. Juston, "Big Cypress Seminoles Receive Three-Phase Program," Journal American Indian Education, IX (October, 1970). See also H. A. Kersey, A. Keithley, and F. W. Brunson, "Improving Reading Skills of Seminole Children," JAIR, X (May, 1971).

2. Emily M. Berges, "We Created Books," The Instructor, LXXIX (June-July, 1970).

3. This particular technique for using peer-produced reading materials with both migrant and Indian children was developed by Dr. F. Ward Brunson of Florida Atlantic University.