Alaska's last literacy blueprint was written in 2011. A lot has changed in 12 years. Since then, Alaska adopted new English Language Arts standards to reflect the advanced literacy students need to be ready for college and careers. The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) adopted the Alaska Native Cultural Standards for…

This study used Culturally Relevant Reading materials (CRRM) with a proprietary, culturally relevant pedagogy for Reading. It was focused on results in Reading Achievement, both reading fluency and comprehension, involving 7th and 8th grade students in a twelve (12)-week program of Reading Language Arts. It was an exploratory sequential mixed…

In this column, the author relates her experience as a teacher in a K-12 school in Point Hope, Alaska, where most of the students spoke "village English," a form of nonstandard English mixed with the village's native language of Inupiaq. She relates how the students' reading test scores, which had been below the 25th percentile, were…