To support the use of Alaska Native languages in schools, educators propose reading standards

When Alaska students learn to read in English, they aim to meet specific expectations and standards that measure their proficiency. Yet when they learn to read in their Alaska Native language — many of which are endangered — those objectives are often lacking, making the learning process more difficult, some educators say.

To support students’ learning and help teachers communicate learning expectations and progress, a group of Alaska Native educators created a framework that adds more structure to teaching reading in each of the 23 official Alaska Native languages.

Fourteen educators — Ahtna, Aleut, Alutiiq, Gwich’in Athabascan, Inupiaq, Tlingit and Yup’ik — developed reading standards that lay out what students from kindergarten through third grade are expected to know to develop proficiency in reading in their language, T’aaḵu Ḵwáan educator Shx̱éi Nancy Douglas said.

“The schools are partly responsible for stripping away languages,” Douglas said when the group presented the standards in October to the Alaska State Board of Education and Early Development. “We need to create a framework so that the schools can be part of bringing languages back into the lives of our students, into the lives of our families.”

The framework was created in response to the Alaska Reads Act, which states that students need to become proficient in reading by fourth grade.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean English,” Douglas said. “This framework puts those Alaska Native languages in the same level platform as English. ... Without it, we have no direction, we have no guidance.”

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development last October requested the creation of the reading standards as a part of “a larger effort to support the development and use of Alaska Native languages in schools,” according to the department.

The group started the work in January, meeting with Indigenous language speakers and knowledge holders in various communities.

“There’s a lot of trust and a lot of relationship building that had to happen at the very beginning,” said Kristy Ford, education director at Sealaska Heritage Institute, the organization leading the effort. “Everything was done through this co-design process that really created a container of safety and vulnerability and support.”

While the standards are broad, the specifics are going to come from each language group, said Tlingit educator Shgendootan George.

“We did not lay out what proficiency is in each language, and program and district is going to need to look at it and say, ‘For our students and for our language and for our program, this is what proficiency will be,’” George said. “Our intention behind this work was not to standardize Alaska Native languages.”

The framework authors wanted to ensure it aligns with the Alaska Native cultures and worldviews, and reflects the holistic Indigenous approach to learning, George said. She said it was challenging, considering the long-standing oral tradition of passing Alaska Native languages and knowledge, and the group started by redefining reading to include the listening aspect of it.

“Native language didn’t have a written orthography, and so the assumption then is that we didn’t read. We were kind of challenging that assumption by saying that oral literacy is a form of reading, and that reading can be more than looking at text on a page,” George said. “Reading is gathering meaning and processing it. ... We read the environment, we read the weather, we read plants and animals, and our art forms are also a form of documentation and reading.”

As a result, the proposed Alaska Native reading standards include references to not only written passages but also to listening.

The standards are organized into two categories: comprehension and foundational skills. The foundational skills category is similar to English language arts standards, George said. Comprehension includes interacting with place, understanding and vocabulary.

“Our languages are so complex and so intertwined with our culture, they can’t be separated from our culture,” George said. “So you might get a literal meaning of a vocabulary word, but the parts of that word might have a much deeper cultural connection.”

Students learning the language are expected to progress in how deeply they can understand the connection between literal objects and concepts in their culture, George said.

“When we see the fireweed blooming, we know that the sockeye are running in the streams,” she said. “Devil’s club is a medicinal plant, but it also carries a very spiritual and cultural meaning, and we use it as a metaphor when we’re talking about healing. All of these are different ways to look at reading your environment.”

To decide whether to implement the new reading standards for Alaska Native languages, the Board of Education will take up the matter again early next year.

Meanwhile, Kam’aRaq Jamie Shanley, assistant director of education at Sealaska Heritage Institute, said that these standards are “just a little snippet of what could happen and ways we can look at standardizing education.”

The group is talking about working on recommendations for developing instructional materials and an immersive environment, supporting teachers and implementing best practices in teaching when the teacher is also learning.

The fact that students can get new meaning from repeated stories as they get older also means that the new reading standards don’t just end at third grade and are instead applicable through adulthood, George said.

“The hope is that we can take it beyond third grade,” Douglas said. “I think this is the beginning of a whole lot of great opportunities for our state.”

The comprehension skills developed through the reading standards levels also expand to other subjects and realms of knowledge, Shanley said.

“It doesn’t stop with reading,” Shanley said. “It’s math, it’s science, it’s social and emotional development, it’s everything.”

“It’s building on the strengths and intelligence of a student and going deeper in their depth of knowledge,” Ford said.