Joseph H. Ramey, Thomas W. Sileo and Helen Zongolowicz

GREASEWOOD Boarding School, located on the Navajo Indian Reservation, is approximately 90 miles from the nearest metropolitan area. Greasewood is situated on the Colorado Plateau which extends from western New Mexico across Arizona to the Grand Canyon, and has a climate which varies from moderate summer temperatures to sub-zero temperatures in the winter.

Approximately 1,600 Navajo people reside within a 12-mile radius of the trading post and the local school which is operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Twenty percent of the adult population is employed at the school, and the remainder is unemployed or dependent on sheep herding, supplemented by public assistance, for subsistence. Job opportunities are limited due to the lack of economic development, educational deficiencies and isolation.

The Navajo people are predominantly monolingual speakers of the Navajo language, therefore, 63% of the school's population speak little or no English when they enter school. The students participate in individualized instructional activities throughout the day in their regular classroom setting. Emphasis is placed on the acquisition of English language skills in small group settings or on a one-to-one ratio. The services of the academic professional personnel are complemented by para-professional education aides funded under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

In addition to their regular classroom activities, 123 students in grades 1-8 participate in Resource Centers, funded by Title I, designed to correct specific language disabilities and to foster concomitant academic progress, Those students in the centers possess average or above average intelligence, however, they function one to four years below national norms in the academic areas of reading, language usage and mathematics due to one or more specific learning disabilities. Deficiencies in language and conceptual skill development, gross motor development, sensory motor integration, and perceptual motor skills hinder their ability to cope with a total academic environment.

The major objective of the program afforded by the Resource Centers is to enable 40% of the students to return to full-time participation in the regular classroom. The remaining 60% of the students will master at least 50% of the behavioral objectives outlined for them based on diagnosis of their specific learning disability. Normally, the students would attain only 30% of the objectives without the assistance of Title I. Tests utilized to evaluate the students and to assist in the development of prescriptive programs include the Slingerland Screening Test, Valett Inventory of Psychoeducational Learning Abilities, Frostig Test of Visual Perception, Nelson Reading Test, and the Fountain Valley Teacher Support Systems in Reading and Mathematics. All diagnostic testing is accomplished by the Resource Center teacher as an on-going process in order to diagnose continually the students' strengths and weaknesses. Intelligence tests and those which do not relate directly to the students' academic and developmental needs are not administered.

Daily logs maintained for each student indicate behavioral objectives, activities, and task analyses. The information provided by the logs determines the extent to which program objectives have been accomplished.

The Resource Center Program is based on the philosophy of mainstreaming, which allows children to remain in the regular classroom setting and at the same time receive the necessary special education services. Students are not categorized according to a specific deficiency nor do their cumulative records indicate that they have received special education services.

The program is three-fold and encompasses the major instructional areas of language development, conceptual skill development, and motor skill development, each of which is adapted to meet the specific needs of the students it serves.

The language development program fosters the acquisition of language skills, since students exhibiting learning disabilities are often deficient in listening skills, the use and structure of oral and written language, articulation, word analysis skills, and reading comprehension.

A comprehensive program in conceptual skill development serves those students who are deficient in the areas of number concepts, arithmetical processes, reasoning, classification, general information and common sense reasoning techniques.

The developmental motor skills program encompasses the areas of gross motor development, sensory-motor integration and perceptual motor skills. Children with learning disabilities often need additional instruction in order to develop those motor skills which other students acquire almost automatically.

An eclectic approach is utilized in each of the skill development areas to foster the acquisition of skills, and to correct the specific learning disability.

The role of the teachers and the education aides is most crucial to program success. The following teacher qualifications are necessary for successful program operation:

(1) Teaching experience at Greasewood Boarding School; (2) the ability to function as a team member with education aides and regular classroom teachers; (3) the ability to establish and maintain rapport with students; (4) an optimistic outlook on life; (5) flexibility with structure; (6) receptiveness to change; (7) emotional stability; (8) faith in students' capabilities; and, (9) graduate credit in the area of learning disabilities.

The education aides must possess the same personal requirement, but are required to have a minimum of six hours in education. In addition, the aides are required to speak Navajo and English. Two teachers and four education aides work with project students in two separate Resource Centers established to accommodate student referrals on the basis of chronological age and grade level. In order to provide adult models for all the students, one aide is male and the other female.

The teachers and education aides work with small groups of students throughout the day. Each student participates an average of two to five hours weekly, depending on the severity of his learning disability, as long as necessary to attain the objectives established for him. If a student requires a maintenance program, he continues until the disability has been corrected.

Parents and Parent Advisory Council members (required by Title I law and regulations) are involved in establishing program priorities based on students' academic deficiencies. They are also encouraged to observe student participation, in the resource center services, to ascertain from the teachers and education aides, the benefits of the program in terms of student progress, and to make recommendations for program operation.

The process of evaluating student progress in the Resource Center is a difficult task since all students participate in individualized programs. Testing of students, therefore, is a continuous process which also indicates program modifications to meet students' needs. As Lovitt points out: "Only when assessment and subsequent remediation are based on direct and continuous observation of observable behavior can pupil and/or programming efficiency be accurately and immediately measured" (see Reference 2).

For the purposes of comparison, a random sampling of 20 students was selected. September pre-test scores were compared with the post-test scores on the Valett.

The graphic representation of the Valett (charts 1 and 2) shows marked improvement in most areas. The areas of gross motor development progressed adequately as indicated by the consistent growth pattern in the various subtests. The students gained an average of one performance level in the areas of controlled rolling, erect sitting, jumping, skipping, dancing, and general physical health. They averaged two performance levels of growth in the areas of crawling, walking, throwing, body localization, body abstraction, and muscular strength. The use of the various motor development programs and the appropriate use of equipment has been successful in most areas. One method particularly successful in dealing with hyperactive boys was to take them on walks and to play follow the leader. Another was to have the children pretend they were a train and say their ABC's while going around the room as the children took turns being leaders.

In the area of sensory-motor Integration, the students attained an average of one performance level of growth in directionality, laterality and time orientation. They averaged two performance levels of growth in balance and rhythm, body-spatial organization, reaction-speed dexterity and tactile discrimination. Valett defines time orientation as "the ability to judge lapses in time and to be aware of time concepts (see Reference 3). For the Navajo child whose culture places a different emphasis on time, it is most important that he learn the concept of time because it plays an important role in determining the success of a person in school, on the job, and in life in general. To assist the children in developing such a time sense, a contingency management program is implemented in which the students are given a task which is to be completed within a specific period of time. After the task is completed, the students are free to select the type of activity in which they would like to participate. The students come to realize that they can control how they use their time and that time is an important aspect in their lives.

In the area of perceptual-motor skills, the students averaged one performance level of growth in decoding, sequencing, visual acuity, coordination and pursuit, memory, visual-motor memory, spatial-form manipulation, speed of learning, and visual-motor integration. An average of two years' growth was seen in functional hearing, vocal association, form discrimination, figure/ground, and fine muscle coordination.

Language development presented the area of greatest concern. The students showed an average gain of one performance level in vocabulary, fluency and encoding, articulation, word attack skills, reading comprehension and writing. Some difficulties stem from the fact that English is a second language for all the students tested. Greater emphasis, therefore, must be placed on vocabulary development and reading comprehension.

In the area of conceptual skills, the students gained an average of one performance level in the areas of number concept, arithmetic processes, arithmetic reasoning, and comprehension. They averaged two levels of growth in the areas of general information and classification. The use of role playing to learn money concepts and the drill provided for the mastery of basic arithmetic facts were most effective.

It must be pointed out that the Valett Test is the best measure of the specifics of this program for primary students. One easily sees the relationship between the programs used in the Resource Centers and the test items.

In the area of perceptual motor skills, the teachers devised a checklist of behavioral objectives. As students mastered the skills by performing the required task, a check was placed after their names.

At the end of the project year, 42% or 52 of the 123 students in the resource rooms were returned to full-time participation in the regular classroom because they mastered 100% of the behavioral objectives set for them. The 71 who remained in the resource room the entire academic year mastered 90% of the behavioral objectives set for them.

It is extremely important to call once again to the reader's attention the need to evaluate students in terms of criterion-referenced tests. The accompanying scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a random sample of 8, shows how distorted a picture one could receive on a basis of norm referenced test scores.

The above scores are invalid as the Peabody was developed for children who have English as their first language. None of these children are retarded, yet the scores would lead one to think so. The test does show that these students need much work on vocabulary development.

The philosophy of the Resource Room is to take the student where he is and to provide the necessary remediation techniques to help him attain the skills needed for academic proficiency. Therefore, evaluation tools should be objective, meaningful and an integral part of the basic instructional program.

The success of the Resource Centers at Greasewood Boarding School has led to their adaptation or replication at other Bureau of Indian Affairs schools on the Navajo Reservation in an attempt to alleviate specific learning disabilities as an obstacle to the acquisition of language and conceptual skills.

1. Bernard Spolsky, Navajo Reading Study. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, March 1970.

2. Thomas C. Lovitt, "Assessment of Children with Learning Disabilities," Exceptional Children, XXXIV (December, 1967) p. 233.

3 Robert E. Valett, Programming Learning Disabilities (Belmont: Fearon Publishers, 1969), p. 20.

Joseph H. Ramey has been with the Navajo Area of the BIA since 1965, as a classroom teacher, educational specialist in the TESL program, and special projects administrator. He received his B.S. degree in education from Northeastern State College, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and the M.A. and Ed.D. degrees from Arizona State University.

Thomas W. Sileo received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from Seton Hall University, South Orange, N. J. and began his career in education in Woodbridge, N. J. In 1971, he joined the Navajo Area as a reading teacher and Title I coordinator. He became an educational specialist in 1974.

Helen M. Zongolowicz has taught elementary school in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, New Mexico and California. She has been with the Navajo Area Office since 1970, first as teacher at Greasewood Boarding School, and now as acting education specialist for the Fort Defiance Agency. She received her B.Ed. degree at Dominican College, Racine, and the M.A. from Cardinal Stritch College.