Literacy and Multilingual Indigenous Language Learners: Elevating the Voices of Education Leaders and Culturally Sustaining Practices

Indigenous methodologies for guiding, advising, and educating children have been in place since time immemorial. Those well-honed approaches to education were built to support whole and healthy individual development while also establishing a lifelong awareness and reverence for community, connection, kinship, and reciprocity. In Western cultures, literacy is narrowly defined as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. For many Indigenous peoples from oral cultures, however, the emphasis is placed on a different set of skills, including careful observation and understanding of both the human and natural world. The transfer of intergenerational, place-based knowledge through storytelling and other oral and social interactions and experiences creates a rich and meaningful learning environment in which children develop not only literacy skills but also a deep understanding of the connection between the people, the land, sacred waterways, and animal and plant relatives. In Indigenous cultures, literacy cannot be limited to the ability to read and write but must also include the capacity to understand, respect, and transmit heritage knowledge. The ability to communicate effectively and meaningfully fosters well-being and connection and supports Indigenous people in contributing to the world around them. SEA leaders from the Offices of Native Education in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington met several times over a year as part of the Region 16 Comprehensive Center's (R16CC) Co-designing with Families and Communities initiative. These leaders have been grappling with the complex tensions between Indigenous language revitalization and literacy, particularly in the context of the state and national emphasis on the Science of Reading and the goal of ensuring every student reads proficiently by third grade--an approach that prioritizes English. At the same time, there is growing recognition from the nation's capital of the importance of multilingualism, which for Native families and communities means a focus on language revitalization. This report aims to support SEA leaders as they navigate these tensions, balancing the push for early literacy in English instruction aligned with the Science of Reading while advocating for educational sovereignty, cultural integrity, Indigenous language revitalization, and authentic family and community engagement. As the Co-designing with Families and Communities initiative came to a close, the SEA Native education leaders requested that R16CC create a report detailing the intersections, constraints, and insights related to Indigenous language revitalization and literacy approaches. This report draws on both research and the lived experiences of key leaders and experts, offering perspectives to advance the conversation around these inherent tensions while supporting state efforts to promote language and literacy for Native students in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington.