Literacy is Empowering Project
Encyclopedia
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
children to increase standard academic language.
Purpose
Reading comprehension
Many educators in the USA believe that children need to learn to analyze text (comprehend it) even before they can read it on their own, and comprehension instruction generally begins in pre-Kindergarten or Kindergarten. But other US educators consider this reading approach to be completely backward for very young children, arguing that the children must learn how to decode the words in a story through phonics
Phonics
Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...
before they can analyze the story itself.
The Project aims to have Native American children in and around the Navajo Nation
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
find interest in reading and enjoy it. Many children sometimes don't have the resources, which powers a drive to read on most American Indian reservations. Rozanna felt it was a badly needed program to help many children find interest in reading which would then lead to higher test scores.
History
The Literacy is Empowering Book Drive began in November 2004 by Rozanna Benally during her reign as 2004-05 Miss Utah Navajo, and her family (father-Ray, mother-Rebecca, brother-Ryan and sister-Rhianna). Books were collected for children across the Navajo Nation communities. The book drive was a success and collected 876 books.As Miss Utah Navajo, her platform was “the importance of education.” Rozanna became interested in providing more books to children from previous experiences in book drives in college and the joy it gave to children. She graduated from the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
, with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech & Hearing Sciences, and continues to work in the field of Education in the Speech-Language Pathology area.
The book drive has become a Benally family effort to get books to children across the Navajo Nation.
Continuance of Project
The need to get more books is a continuous effort, to support reading readiness and literacy skills, book drives are a year round effort conducted by the organization. Family Literacy Night events are arranged with the Literacy is Empowering Project Coordinator-Rebecca M. Benally. Several locations are selected across the Navajo Nation to distribute books to children. The Literacy is Empowering Project Director- Rozanna R. Benally has a goal to collect 2,000 books this year.See also
- LiteracyLiteracyLiteracy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
- Reading educationReading educationReading education is the process by which individuals are taught to derive meaning from text.Government-funded scientific research on reading and reading instruction began in the U.S. in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers began publishing findings based on converging evidence from...
- Elementary and Secondary Education ActElementary and Secondary Education ActThe Elementary and Secondary Education Act , is a United States federal statute enacted April 11, 1965. It was passed as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" and has been the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education ever passed by Congress...
- Southern Athabaskan languagesSouthern Athabaskan languagesSouthern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas...