Ellbogen Fellow focuses on WRIR literacy effort

Mary Ellbogen Garland (seated, left) Patrick Manyak (seated, right) Dean Pat McClurg (standing, left) Director of Development Sally Sutherland (standing, right)

Longtime interests in literacy and multicultural issues, and the chance to develop a program benefiting children on the Wind River Indian Reservation, have combined to create a potentially groundbreaking research opportunity for the newest recipient of the UW College of Education’s Mary Ellbogen Garland Early Career Fellowship.

Patrick Manyak, assistant professor of elementary and early childhood education, is the third junior faculty member to receive the fellowship. Funds from the award will support a multi-year research project he has developed in collaboration with primary teachers at Wyoming Indian Elementary School.

The project has two goals, one focusing on creating quality literacy instruction, the other examining the collaborative relationship that has developed between researcher and teachers.

“Clearly, the primary goal is to develop the very best literacy instruction for those children, to make them equally and powerfully literate,” Manyak says.

Research addressing this goal fit three dimensions: developing basic code-centered instruction (e.g., phonemic awareness), identifying practices that balance basic skills instruction and meaningful interaction with text, and introducing children to digital literacies (e.g., e-mail, Internet research and web design).

Two years into the research process, focus is on understanding how children develop literacy skills and adapting instruction to improve performance. Work in this area might include beginning word recognition, fluency and comprehension – skills that lay the foundation for everything that follows.

Basic skills are part of the process, but they are not the entire process.

“We should never equate reading or literacy with basic cognitive processes,” Manyak says. “Above all, it’s a cultural tool that we use to survive and thrive in our communities, environments and settings. There are values, beliefs, social relations, and so forth, that underlie and support literacy development and make it meaningful. We also want them to be very meaningfully literate within their cultural community.”

Making the cultural connection involves, in part, interacting with the children and their families to better understand their cultural heritage. Data gathering includes interviews with families to discover the resources and values that shape their lives. Reading and writing instruction can then incorporate examples to which children can relate personally.

The project’s second goal also offers a high-impact challenge – describing the factors behind a highly successful collaboration in a field with few exemplars.

“What is it that’s facilitating our collaborative work there? What kinds of tools have been particularly powerful in mediating that relationship?” are the questions Manyak and his teammates hope to answer as they work toward meeting their second goal.

“The teachers there have the opportunity to become the best teachers in our country, or the world, because of the challenges they face… They can’t afford to be good. They must be great to have the kinds of results they hope for.”

While the field of literacy has exploded in the past 20 years, virtually none of that research has focused on the needs and challenges of Native American children. While collaboration between K-12 educators and researchers is a popular topic of discussion in education circles, few quality examples exist. Manyak and his teacher collaborators will have multiple opportunities to share their findings with researchers and classroom teachers alike.

Manyak travels to the school one day per week during the school year. His day begins around 9:30, after flying to Riverton and traveling to the reservation. Upon arrival, Patrick frequently finds himself observing instructional sessions and offering feedback. He also frequently engages informal assessment of children who are struggling in some way with literacy issues.

Manyak and his research teammates meet for a working lunch, discussing research articles they’ve read since the last meeting and discussing classroom issues. The afternoon usually includes a check-in with a student teacher assigned to an upper grade classroom, then a planning-period demonstration and post-session discussion with the first grade teachers. Then it’s back on the road to catch the university plane by 3 p.m.

“It’s always a jam-packed day,” Manyak says.

Ellbogen Fellow focuses on WRIR literacy effort

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