Anthony in front of the Blackfeet Tribal Library
Libraries indeed transform!
Dr. Chow and Dr. Roy with painting depicting why libraries are important to The Blackfeet Nation.
Blackfeet Tribal Members Believe Libraries are Important for Their Future
Jimi, Browning elementary school librarian, believes their reading scores are so low because of a mix of poverty, distance from libraries, adult illeteracy, and too assertively trying to force students to read.
Shonti believes books and libraries are essential to her and her son’s future.
Kyle saw that the kids who read a lot when they were children went to college. Those who did not did not.
Reading Nation Finally Meets in Person
After a year of working together and corresponding by phone, email, text, and video conference all three us finally meet in person!
Anthony, Loriene, and Aaron.
Is Proximity to Public Libraries Related to Positive Reading Scores?
Preliminary analysis of American Indian reading scores in Montana show an interesting relationship between distance a school is from a public library and reading scores: the highest performing schools are 3.8 miles away from a public library on average while the lowest are 17.8!
Reading Nation Brings Environmental Scan On-site
On Tuesday 7/10 the Reading Nation will begin a week long meeting with members of the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, MT to discuss literacy and access to libraries.
First Advisory Board Meeting Held
We want to thank our wonderful Advisory Board for our first meeting, which was held on Monday June 18, 2018. We will meet once every quarter (every three months) and several of our advisory board members will be helping collect data at the upcoming Blackfeet powwow taking place July 12-July 15, 2018.
View the members of the Reading Nation advisory board here.
Reading Nation Presents Poster at TCLI – 6/4/18
Reading Nation presented our poster at the Tribal College Library Institute (TCLI) held at Montana State University. Aaron LaFrombosie and Loriene Roy attended in person while Anthony Chow joined virtually from Greensboro, NC.
As part of our presentation we asked attendees to respond to a quick poll to test whether some of our guiding assumptions were generalizable to other tribal nations.
Of our five assumptions, attendees supported the notion that these issues could be applied to other tribal nations as well:
Reading Nation Twitter Now Live!
Follow Reading Nation on Twitter @NationReading or go to https://twitter.com/NationReading.
Reading Nation Facebook Group Now Live!
Reading Nation Presents at Tribal College Librarians Institute (TCLI)
On Monday June 4th, 2018 Loriene, Aaron, and Anthony will present their poster session entitled,”Reading Nation: Libraries Serving Native American Children, Youth, and Families” at the Tribal College Librarians Institute (TCLI) taking place at Montana State University from June 4 – 8, 2018.