Teaching College Readiness on the Navajo Nation

 

We are delighted to add Eran Hornick to our team. Eran is spending the year at Wingate High in Fort Wingate, NM, where he is working with juniors and seniors on college readiness.

Reader to Reader's Blueprint for Success program works with high school students to explore their college options, prepare for standardized tests, and get a head start on their college applications. This multi-faceted program promotes not only preparedness but a deeper understanding of college life, academics, and finding the right school, showing them that college is a real and tangible option.

Erla Sagg: A Reader to Reader Success Story!

"I feel like the Reader to Reader - Read, Think, Share Program was the start of something I like to call 'multidimensional  consciousness,'" says Erla Sagg, an alum of our Read, Think, Share program in Navajo, New Mexico. Erla is now membership coordinator for the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC).

Erla is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. Erla comes from the Hardrock and Big Mountain community on the Arizona side of the Navajo Nation. She represents the Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle clan) and is born for the Bitahnii (Folded arms clan). Her maternal grandfathers are of the Naakai Dine'e (wandering people) and paternal grandfathers are the Ashihii (Salt clan).

"Before I was in the Reader to Reader's - Read, Think, Share Program, I was unaware of the world outside of the classroom and the small community of Navajo, New Mexico, Sagg explains. "I had general knowledge on topics like the Holocaust and genocide occurring in Africa, because these were brought up in history class. I was not aware that my own community, and country had and continues to also be a place of genocide and systematic oppression. It wasn't until I read Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie that I had an awakening of reality. This was one of the first books I picked up while in the program, and I remember sitting in the library, realizing that many of us were facing the same thing. Some of us were having identity crises, facing federal coercion, fighting assimilation, unknowingly angered about generational traumas, or simply not doing anything because we had feelings of exclusion from our communities. Aside from the mysterious murders and underlying behavioral health issues the lead character might've had, this book helped me realize that we can be the answer to change. This program showed me that books had the answers to the questions I had about why people were the way they were. Joining the Reader to Reader's program, gave me the ability to critically comprehend societal behaviors and atrocities happening to American Indian people, while many of my peers were interested in the latest shoes and mainstream music.

After attending Navajo Pine High school, I began reading: Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose; God is Red by Vine Deloria Jr.; and Ojibwe Warrior by Dennis Banks. Some of these books were sent to me, from the Reader to Reader Program after leaving Navajo Pine. I can remember feeling the encouragement and motivation when I returned home for the weekend, and I had a big box of books waiting for me. If it wasn't for that box of books that had been provided to me, I feel that I would have slipped slowly into madness. I wanted to become part of the change! At 14 years of age, I wanted to become part of Indigenous survivance.

Today, my bookshelves hold books from authors like Gregory Cajete and Raymond Austin. If it wasn't for this program, I don't know where I would be in life."

After her freshman year at Navajo Pine High School, Erla attended Greyhills Academy High School in Tuba City, Arizona. In May of 2011, she graduated at the top of her class with a 3.98 GPA. Erla received a Presidential Scholarship from Utah State University, where she graduated with an Associates of Science and a Certificate of Completion for the License of Practical Nursing Program. After deciding to change her major from Environmental Chemistry, Erla was accepted to the Native American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico.

In the early parts of 2018, Erla was one of thirteen participants in the Native American Political Leadership Program with George Washington University. She was also one of two Richard M. Milanovich Fellows for this program. In December of 2018, Erla graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Native American Studies with a focus in Leadership and Building Native Nations and a minor in Psychology.

Today, Erla is a graduate student at UNM with a focus in Indigenous Leadership, Self-Determination, and Sustainable Community Building. With a 4.0 GPA, Erla is also working as a Membership Coordinator with the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC) located in Washington, DC. NAIHC is a not-for-profit organization which seeks to effectively and efficiently promote and support American Indians, Alaska Native and native Hawaiians in their self-determined goal to provide culturally relevant and quality affordable housing for native people. Along with eight other team members, Erla provides tribes and Tribally Designated Housing Entities with up-to-date information on grants, trainings, and federal policies such as the Native American Housing and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). NAIHC also provides advocacy efforts for increased allocation funding like Indian Housing Block Grant, Veterans Affairs, and Indian Community Development Block Grant funding.

Erla's goal is to attend Stanford University Law School. She also wishes to pursue a career deeply focused with federal Indian policy and creating change tribal youth across Indian country.

Mountain of Books & Computers Heading to the Navajo Nation

Blistering 90-degree heat and stifling humidity couldn't stop our latest shipment to the Navajo Nation in Arizona.

More than 400 boxes of books, 31 Dell PCs, and 9 iMacs are on their way to the Navajo Nation Library in Window Rock, Arizona.

The books will fill shelves at the Navajo Nation Library and its branch libraries in Kayenta, Arizona,  and Crownpoint, New Mexico.

In addition, books and computers are being donated to the Red Mesa High School in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona, and St. Michael Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona.

Over the past decade, Reader to Reader's Navajo Nation Book Drive has donated over 200,000 books, and hundreds of computers to libraries and schools on the 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation.

$70,000 Worth of Books Headed to Navajo and Apache Schools

Reader to Reader offers a special thank you to SOHO Press for their generous donation of $70,000 worth of books for teens and adults!

The books are headed to schools and libraries on the Navajo Nation and San Carlos Apache reservation.

Reader to Reader Expands Navajo Nation Staff

Welcome to Martha Hughes, who joins our staff in New Mexico, as one of our two Navajo Nation Outreach Coordinators.

This year we our expanding our capability on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico in order to reach more schools.

Martha will be helping students at various schools prepare for the ACT, and will assist them with the college application process.

Martha grew up on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico. After receiving her BA in English & German from Coe College and her MA in Intercultural Education, Migration, and Multilingualism from the Karlsruhe University of Education, she's thrilled to be back in Dinétah. Reader to Reader affords her the unique opportunity to share her dedication to providing progressive education to Native youth through the Blueprint for Success program.

Our expansion of our Navajo Nation work is made possible by the generous support of the Fordham Street Foundation, the Hiatt Family Foundation, and Lynn and Jean Miller.

Reader to Reader Receives 5-Year Grant to Expand Navajo Nation Work

We are jumping for joy over our new 5-year capacity building grant we received to expand our work with Native American high school students on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico. 

The grant will enable us to hire an additional full-time staff person to be based in Fort Wingate, New Mexico. 

Our goal is to expand the number of schools that participate in our Blueprint for Success program, which aims to raise college entrance exam scores, and guide students through the college admission process.

Last year, thanks to the program, students at Wingate High School in Fort Wingate scored 30% higher on their ACT exam than the students that attended the school in 2010-2014. 

We gratefully thank the Fordham Street Foundation for the funding of this grant.

ACT Scores Soar at Wingate High

Reader to Reader’s Navajo Nation Outreach Coordinator, Jeannette Ortega, has been doing an amazing job at Wingate High School in Fort Wingate, New Mexico.

She teaches 6 classes a day focusing on ACT test prep and college readiness.

The results of her hard work are clear, as ACT scores have soared 30 percent since she arrived there two years ago.

The dramatic rise in scores makes more students eligible for college, and makes college more affordable, as more students are eligible for scholarships.

Editorial: Reader to Reader Exports Hope with Books

Thursday, November 10, 2016
Daily Hampshire Gazette

Page by page, an Amherst nonprofit continues to fight educational inequality by shipping free books to disadvantaged communities.

But there is more to Reader to Reader than tons of paper. This novel program, founded by David Mazor more than a decade ago, exports hope.

Yes, hope, that thing with feathers, as Emily Dickinson once ventured. “That perches in the soul - / And sings the tune without the words - / And never stops - at all -”

While best known for its book donations, Reader to Reader works to advance literacy – and the economic hope literacy ignites – in impoverished communities beyond this country’s borders.

Mazor’s program also serves as a lifeline to intrepid students from the Five Colleges inspired to design and launch their own global literacy projects.

Books remain the coin of the realm. Starting late last month, Reader to Reader made its latest book donation to schools in Native American communities in the Southwest — one of its oldest efforts.

Schools in New Mexico and Arizona are receiving more than 52,000 books worth half a million dollars. The program’s simple goal is to get books into the hands of children in underfunded schools, believing that reading lights fires of curiosity that, once kindled, cannot be extinguished.

As Reader to Reader has grown, new corporate relationships enable it to get many more books into schools like the Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools in Gallup, New Mexico, and the Central Consolidated Schools in Shiprock, New Mexico. Both are receiving books in the latest shipment, along with the Ganado Unified School District in Ganado, Arizona, the Hopi School District in Keams Canyon, Arizona, and the Tuba City Unified School District in Tuba City, Arizona.

The program crossed the 50,000-volume mark on this donation thanks in part to its ties to the Scholastic Corp., Pioneer Valley Press, Soho Press and other publishers.

A library staffer in the Gallup-McKinley schools, which are getting 14,000 books, says the program’s impact on students will be “profound.”

Separately, more than 21,000 volumes are headed to the Navajo Nation Library in Window Rock, Arizona. Reader to Reader is also shipping books to a Native American community that’s been in the news – the Standing Rock Reservation, whose members are fighting a pipeline project and reached out to the Amherst program for help to improve the library at a South Dakota campus of Sitting Bull College.

Not surprisingly, there’s been mission creep in the Reader to Reader ranks for years. Students from local colleges continue to serve as tutors and reading mentors. Many do that here in the Valley, as several did with the Summer of Power program for five weeks this year in Holyoke by helping students improve their English language skills. The program says 200 Five Colleges students, working in Massachusetts and New Mexico, are mentoring 1,400 low-income young readers.

Further afield, Reader to Reader continues to assist efforts, sometimes through its Springboard Program, to advance literacy in places like Managua, Nicaragua, Arani, Bolivia, and Santa Cruz, Costa Rica. The Springboard Program helps college students do global good.

They include the four students from Amherst College who’ve been improving a three-room public library in the village of Santa Cruz.

Reader to Reader does seem like “the thing that never stops,” as Dickinson wrote.

In that same poem, she said of hope: “I’ve heard it in the chillest land - / And on the strangest Sea - / Yet - never - in Extremity, / It asked a crumb - of me.”

For information on how to support Reader to Reader’s efforts, and perhaps provide some financial crumbs, visit readertoreader.org.

$500,000 in New Books to Native American Schools

(Photo: Lincoln Elementary students in Gallup, New Mexico get new books on Halloween)
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By SCOTT MERZBACH
Staff Writer/Daily Hampshire Gazette
Tuesday, November 01, 2016

AMHERST — Children of Navajo Nation and Hope Nation who attend schools in New Mexico and Arizona are receiving $500,000 worth of new books following a donation from an Amherst-based literacy organization.

A total of 52,126 books are being shipped directly to the various school districts in the Southwest for distribution, said David Mazor, founder and executive director of Reader of Reader.

“We are pleased to make this large donation in order to get as many books into the hands of children,” Mazor said.

The books, which are of general interest for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, are provided through Reader to Reader’s partnerships with Scholastic Corporation, which runs the Scholastic Possible Fund, and Pioneer Valley Press, Soho Press and other publishers.

Among the school systems receiving the books are the Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools in Gallup, New Mexico, the Central Consolidated Schools in Shiprock, New Mexico, the Ganado Unified School District in Ganado, Arizona, the Hopi School District in Keams Canyon, Arizona and the Tuba City Unified School District in Tuba City, Arizona.

Providing books for Native American schools represents a long-term commitment that has been taking place since 2005, Mazor said. In the past decade, Reader to Reader has donated more than $3 million in books.

The Gallup-McKinley schools will get 14,000 books, which are already being given out to students, including at Lincoln Elementary in Gallup.

“These books will have a profound impact on the children in our district,” Mary Lindenmeyer, library media coordinator for the schools, said in a statement.

In addition, the Navajo Nation Library in Window Rock, Arizona will receive over 21,000 books.

Reader to Reader also donates books to the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, and this week began working with the Standing Rock Reservation after its members asked for help in stocking books in the library of the McLaughlin, South Dakota campus of Sitting Bull College.

Literacy Organization Donates Thousands of Books to Navajo and Hopi

Katherine Locke, Reporter 
Navajo Hopi Observer

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - School children on and around Hopi and the Navajo Nation received tens of thousands of new children's books over the holidays to take home thanks to Reader to Reader, a Massachusetts literacy organization.

Reader to Reader works on improving literacy in Arizona and New Mexico, across the United States and internationally.

"We pleased to make this large donation just before the holidays in order to get books into children's hands that they can enjoy over winter vacation," said David Mazor, founder and executive director of Reader of Reader. "We had the option of donating these books to any school districts in the country but we selected the districts that are on and near the Navajo and Hopi Nations as part of our ongoing support of literacy for Native children. We especially thank our partner Scholastic Inc. for the mountain of books they have donated."

Mazor said the organization was contacted about a dozen years ago by a school on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

"We started helping them build their school library and over time it grew to be a bigger effort with more schools and school districts," he said. "It just got bigger and bigger and bigger."

Over the past decade, Reader to Reader has donated over $2.5 million in books, computers and school supplies to school it has worked with on or near the Navajo Nation and the Hopi reservation.

"We help supply a lot of different things depending on the needs of the school," Mazor said. "We reach a whole lot of different schools that range from one end of the Navajo reservation to the other and also on the Hopi reservation."

Among the school systems receiving thousands of books are: Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools, Gallup, New Mexico; Central Consolidated Schools, Shiprock, New Mexico; Ganado Unified School District, Ganado, Arizona; and Hopi School District, Keams Canyon, Arizona.

"We are so happy to be a recipient of Reader to Reader's and Scholastic's generosity," said Mary Lindenmeyer, library medial coordinator for Gallup-McKinley County Schools in Gallup, New Mexico. "They are such an amazing organization that has had a profound impact on the children in our district."

In all, Reader to Reader is donating 17,000 new books for grades kindergarten through grade 12 totaling $200,000 dollars. The books are provided by Reader to Reader through its partnerships with Scholastic Corp. through The Scholastic Possible Fund, Pioneer Valley Press and several other leading publishers.

The organization works with the publishers for what would be of interest or appropriate to where the donation is going because it donates books all around the world and every place is different in what the kids need and what the kids are interested in. The donations sometimes include textbooks, too.

Mazor said part of the reason for founding the organization was the critical shortage of books in lower income communities around the country and the world.


"I wanted to directly address that problem," he said. "Books just open up and give you a doorway to unlocking imagination. On a practical level, the better you read, the better your job prospects are when you grow up, but also, the more you'll know about the world. Reading itself is such a pleasurable experience that when kids get more books in their lives, they enjoy that."

© Copyright 2016 Western News&Info, Inc.

Meet Jeanette Ortega, Reader to Reader Navajo Nation Outreach Coordinator

Reader to Reader’s amazing Navajo Nation Outreach Coordinator Jeannette Ortega helps high school students on the Navajo Nation prepare for ACT/SAT tests, college applications, and making the transition to college life.  Here she is in her classroom at Wingate High School, Ft. Wingate, New Mexico.

Reader to Reader’s work on the Navajo Nation is funded in part by the Fordham Street Foundation, Lynn & Jean Miller, and the Hiatt Family Foundation.

This our fourth year having a full-time staff person based on the Navajo Nation, and  just like the Outreach Coordinators that preceded her, Jeannette is doing a spectacular job of helping students prepare for college.

Jeanette is a 2015 graduate of Amherst College, and previously worked as a summer intern for Reader to Reader in 2014.

E-Readers Donated to School in Gallina, New Mexico

Heather Nielsen from the Great Books Summer Program brought us a wonderful donation of 20 e-readers. They are now on their way to Coronado High School in Gallina, New Mexico. 

Students at the school are increasingly using e-readers as a way to get access to a wide variety of books. 

Reader to Reader's Computer Donation Program donates new computers, tablets and e-readers, and refurbished Dell and Apple computers to schools with strong need for access to technology.

Computer labs have been built in New York City, on the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Nation, western Massachusetts, Costa Rica, Ghana, Kosovo,Nicaragua, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Thank you to Bruce's Browser

We are always sad when a bookstore closes, but we are grateful to Bruce's Browser, Athol, Massachusetts, for donating all their books to us. 

The thousands of new books on a wide variety of topics will be going to the Navajo Nation library in Window Rock, Arizona. 

The Navajo Nation Library is the sole library serving the 27,000 square-mile Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico.

Books for Summer Reading on the Navajo Nation!

We are pleased to donate 2,056 new children’s books for summer reading for kids in the Gallup-McKinley County School District.

"Thank you so much for the wonderful books for Elementary students. We received them in time to send them home to students for summer reading. I cannot express enough how precious these books are to our community and how much they are appreciated!"

-Cindi Tah
Library Media and Assessment Specialist
Gallup McKinley County Schools
Gallup, NM

Visiting Schools in New Mexico

Our recent trip to New Mexico took us to schools on the Navajo Nation and in Albuquerque, where we are expanding our Read, Think, Share mentoring program, and our book and computer donations. 

Giving Out Books on the Navajo Nation

St. Michael High School students in St. Michaels, Arizona (the capital of the Navajo Nation). were thrilled that they could each take home a few books donated by Reader to Reader today. One student told me how excited she was to have something to read over the summer, since she loves reading and was almost out of things to read. A group of freshmen traded book recommendations and bargained with each other over who could borrow which book in what order. Another student was very excited to take home a beautiful book of photos from National Geographic. A student who just returned from a mission trip to the Philippines chose to take home "Mountains Beyond Mountains," about Dr. Paul Farmer's efforts to provide health care in Haiti.

St. Michaels Students Take College Discovery Class

Meg Holladay, our hard-working Navajo Outreach Coordinator, is teaching a College Discovery class at St. Michael Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona. 

Pictured above are students practicing a full-length practice ACT exam Reading section. Test scores have improved dramatically thanks to her work.

The Navajo Outreach Program is funded in part by the Fordham Street Foundation and the Hiatt Family Foundation.

Navajo Pine Students Enjoy Book Donation

Students at Navajo Pine High School in Navajo, New Mexico, enjoy the library’s latest book donation from Reader to Reader.

Practice Makes Perfect at St. Michael Indian School

On Nov. 22, 12 students came to St. Michael's Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona, on a Saturday morning to take a full-length practice ACT under the watchful eye of Reader to Reader’s Navajo Outreach Coordinator, Meg Holladay. We started bright and early at 8AM, the same time the real ACT begins, and the students worked hard on the test until around noon. Eight students chose to write the optional essay section of the test. After time was up, we graded the practice tests together. Students were able to compare their scores to the national averages, and see which sections were going well for them and which they needed to improve. Many told us it was a valuable experience for them, and everyone went home to a well-deserved weekend of rest!

St. Michael Students Learn About College Through Panel Discussion

Last week at St. Michael High School in St. Michaels, Arizona, our Navajo Outreach Coordinator, Meg Holladay, organized a panel discussion of five teachers talking about their experiences in college. This was part of Blueprint for Success, a college-exploration activity that Reader to Reader is running at SMHS.

Students are very curious about college: what's it like to be there? Are professors mean? Is it hard to live with a roommate? Through this panel, teachers were able to tell their college stories. About 25 students, mostly juniors, came during their lunch period to hear them.

The teachers who volunteered to be on the panel had all had very different college experiences. They had attended Penn State, Notre Dame, the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State and the University of Colorado, and Georgian Court University (a small women's college in New Jersey). They had majored in fields as diverse as biology, English, education, and the history of ideas.

Here is Meg’s report on the discussion.

I asked the teachers four questions:

How did you choose your college? When you got there, was it the way you expected?

One teacher said she hadn't expected to like a women's school, and her heart had been set on another college, but when she visited Georgian Court, it felt like a family and she fell in love.

What part of college was the hardest for you, and what was the most fun?

As the hardest part of college, several teachers mentioned social life: getting to know a new set of people, making friends, a divide between Native and non-Native students at UNM. Another teacher talked about trying to balance academics and social life. One teacher said that the intellectual exploration he did in college was the most fun part; another mentioned an English majors' club that organized events like bonfire poetry readings, and another talked about being a mentor for younger students.

What was your single favorite class and why?

One teacher said that her hardest biology class in college, a class in which she'd spend whole days studying, was also her favorite. Several students were incredulous that her favorite was such a hard class. Another teacher told the students about a child-development class in which he was the only man, and many of the women in the class were his grandmother's age--he said he got in touch with the part of himself that says "awww" at pictures of babies.

What part of college has most impacted your life today?

One teacher talked about the writing skills he gained, and how they've been applicable in many more places than he thought they would be. Others talked about social and intellectual skills.

Then we opened up the discussion to student questions. Students asked the teachers what they had written their application essays about, how much writing they had had to do in college, and what they had been afraid of that had turned out okay.

I think that everyone, including myself, left with a better idea of the range of experiences a person can have in college.