Volume 16 Number 1
October 1976

Marvin Fifield and Lonnie Farmer

One of the most effective means to insure that instruction and methodology do reflect and support important cultural variances is to select and place teachers, administrators and aides from representative minority groups. This is difficult, for seldom can one find, among minorities, a sufficient number of qualified people in the teaching ranks. Furthermore, complications occur due to problems of distribution. Qualified teachers tend to seek employment in the more lucrative, least demanding locations and in areas where they, as individuals, can enjoy a rich and full life. As a result, recruiting, training and placing qualified teachers of Indian descent in isolated areas on Indian reservations present many difficulties.

The need to train indigenous members of minority groups, on site, to be teachers and teacher's aides has been repeatedly stressed by various studies, fact-finding commissions, and numerous final reports of demonstration projects (see Reference 1). The teacher corps program represents a national effort directed at this problem (see Reference 2).

In 1973, a Title I demonstration project was started at the Nazlini Boarding School, Chinle Agency on. the Navajo reservation. This project, "HELP," was designed to implement the various recommendations of the study commissions stated above. It was the purpose of the project to select, in-service train, and employ two Navajos from the Nazlini community to serve as teacher aides.

The project envisioned utilizing Navajo aides in a very different role than simply as teacher helpers (see Reference 3). (1) The aides were to be assigned to a resource room to provide supplemental, individualized instruction to children with specific language and reading needs. (2) They were to be taught, on site, in an in-service program, through demonstration, coaching and supervision to follow very prescribed instructional formats and procedures. (3) The instructional materials to be used were selected to meet the following criteria: (a) data verifying their effectiveness in teaching language and reading to children must be available; (b) materials must be suitable for individualized and small group instruction, and (c) they must provide precise instructional formats and procedures.

The two Navajo aides selected had completed high school and were unmarried girls residing with their families in Nazlini.

The selection of the instructional materials presented a major difficulty. To use aides in the manner described above required that the instructional materials be structured to the point that the aides could follow specific teaching routines without making significant teaching decisions. In this respect, the aides themselves were considered an instructional resource to which a certified teacher could refer children for additional drills and prescribed instructions in language and/or reading. The Distar Reading and Language Program was selected as best meeting the established criteria for the materials. The Distar material provides the needed specificity in instructional format to make it possible for aides to learn the format in a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, Distar has been successfully used with Indian children by both aides and teachers in regular and special programs. Additional supplemental materials were also identified, e.g., Modifying Reading Behavior by H. Henderson and Merrell Linguistics and Miami Linguistics Readers.

The initial step was to scope and sequence the skills in lessons taught through Distar with NALAP (the 1974 instructional program in reading and language used in the regular classroom). Sequencing these two programs was necessary to ensure that the instructions provided in the resource room were supplemental to, and in support of, the instructional program in language and reading provided in the regular classroom.

A major task of the program was to provide the training necessary for the aides to use the material appropriately and effectively. The in-service training, technical assistance and project evaluation were components contracted to the Exceptional Child Center at Utah State University in Logan, which sent a team of specialists to conduct the various training sessions with the aides.

Each training session covered three major factors: (1) Modeling. The specialist modeled the appropriate use of the Distar material, including placement, grouping, instructional format, reinforcers, pacing, hand signals, animation, etc. Each skill the aides were expected to master was modeled at several different levels and in different educational settings. (2) Role Playing. The aides worked with each other through role playing as teacher and students. Errors, reinforcements, format, animation, pacing, and hand signals were corrected to the point that competence was demonstrated in each skill by each aide. (3) Demonstration. This required the aides to demonstrate with children their skill in following the format, reinforcing, pacing, etc. At the end of each training session, the aides and the specialists critiqued one another and provided suggestions and recommendations for improvement. During the last day of each training session, the aides taught the entire day under the supervision of the Distar trainer.

The teacher coordinator, Miss Dixie Grimes, and the guidance counselor, Mr. Hugh Chapin, participated in each training session. Miss Grimes and Mr. Chapin were responsible to see that the program functioned as designed and to provide general monitoring of the aides as they worked in the resource classroom.

Three on-site, in-service workshops were held (September, February, and May) at the Nazlini Boarding School, and one workshop was held in Logan, where the aides and the coordinating teacher participated in a four-day, intensive training program. In addition, each aide recorded on a cassette tape a half-day series of Distar lessons every two weeks throughout the year. These tapes were sent to the Distar trainer, were then critiqued and reviewed; suggestions and recommendations were re-recorded on the tapes and sent back to the aides.

The children placed in the program were referred, on a standard referral form, by the regular classroom teacher. They were identified as being in the bottom quarter of the class in reading and language skills. Thus, these students represented the more difficult instructional problems in the school. The project served approximately 50 children throughout the year. Initially 30 children were referred and placed in the program. An additional 20 children were added throughout the year as schedules changed and as children moved in and out of the program and the school. In the resource room the children were assigned to work in small groups. One-half hour was spent in language, the other half hour in reading. The children were regrouped throughout the year as their skills increased to ensure that the faster students were not being held back by children learning at a slower rate.

The evaluation design of this project consisted of an experimental group (children in the resource room) and a control group (students selected at random from the classrooms of the school). To determine the academic attainment of children in the project, pre- and post-testing data were obtained. The effectiveness of the program was determined by comparing the pre- and post-test scores of the control and the experimental groups. Standardized evaluation instruments measured only academic skills. The test instruments included (1) the reading section of the Wide Range Achievement Test, (2) a Criterion Reference Test of Word Recognition Skills and (3) Primary I and Primary II, Form Y and W, of the Stanford Achievement Test. As the number of children assigned to the resource room changed throughout the year, testing data was taken on 27 children in the experimental group and 24 children in the control group. In addition to the objective measures, informal anecdotes and impressions of the aides, teachers and consultants were recorded. Teachers and teacher aide impressions were indicative of the subjective evaluation of the project and its various components.

Table I presents pre- and post-testing data on the Wide Range Achievement Test for the control in the experimental group. The experimental group made a total gain in reading skills of seven months during the seven-month period of the project. During this same period of time, the control group gained six months in reading skills. Although this improvement is not statistically significant, when one considers pre-test scores and the fact that these children have the most difficult reading problems, the difference does appear to be educationally significant.

Table II presents data on the Criterion Referenced Word Recognition Skills. The average gain of students participating in the project was 14 additional word recognition skills, that is, skills which were acquired and successfully demonstrated during the seven months of the project. During that same period of time, the control group acquired seven additional word recognition skills. This gain is statistically significant.

The test score data on the Stanford Achievement Test are less conclusive. Two forms of the SAT were administered, Primary I and Primary II. Although the two forms are not equivalent, in several cases children were pre-tested on Primary I and post-tested on Primary II. This procedure was due to the way the test was constructed (i.e., the break between Primary I and II corresponds to first and second grade academic skills). As a result, the "N" for both groups was extremely small. The average gain of the experimental group on the SAT was approximately two months. The gain for the control group was 2.1. The results on the SAT were not significant.

In reviewing the testing results one must keep in mind that children in the experimental group were those having the greatest difficulty in language and reading by classroom teachers. Thus, those in the resource room were working with the most difficult cases. Many of the children had been previously diagnosed as retarded or having specific learning difficulties. Hence, in a regular program without intervention one would not expect any significant change to occur.

In addition to the objective data significant changes were also reported by the teachers and aides on the attitudes of children. Resource children were reported to be more open, more animated and eager to learn. They seemed to have better social interaction skills and more self-confidence. These characteristics were all suggestive of an improved self-concept. At the beginning of the project, none of the children in the resource room were able to successfully read the available pre-primer books. At the end of the project virtually every child was able to read two or three supplemental readers.

This project demonstrated that relatively untrained teacher aides could be identified and placed in a training program which would prepare them to provide supplemental instruction to children having difficulty in language and reading. The instructional program was very specific in terms of its use of materials, modeling, drills, monitoring, and reinforcement. The aides that participated in the project were anxious to participate another year and voluntarily expressed their enthusiasm.

Utilizing aides in this capacity appears to have the following advantages: (1) they can be assigned in much less time than professional staff who must be approved and assigned through the Bureau of Indian Affairs Personnel Office; (2) they are not required to assume additional assignments, therefore their efforts and activities can be directed towards the specific goals of the child; (3) language, culture, and background areas can be overcome. Thus, the cultural variances unique and important to Navajo children can be supported and related to the task of acquiring language and reading skills. This permits the Navajo child to be better prepared to compete with other children and select far more options as he expands his horizons and makes decisions.

1. Hunter, William A. (Ed.). Multicultural Education Through Competency Based Teacher Education. Washington, D.C.; the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1974.

2. Johnson, Charles E. Competencies for Teachers: A Handbook for Specifying and Organizing Teacher Performance. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1972.

3. Pratt, Wayne T. and Ramey, Joseph H. (Ed.). A Merging Role of the Teacher Aide in Navajo Education. Window Rock, Arizona: Navajo Area Office of Indian Affairs, Branch of Curriculum and Instruction, 1974.

4. Eby, Wesley J., et al. "Navajo Area Language Arts Project." Window Rock, Arizona: BIA, Navajo Area Office Division of Education, 1974.