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Voyager Expanded Learning
Monument Valley High School
Achieving Significant Academic Success






Kayenta, Arizona is located on the Navajo Reservation just twenty-one miles southwest of picturesque Monument Valley, often described as the seventh wonder of the world. The diverse and rich community has achieved something quite rare – the ability of an indigenous people to blend traditional heritage with a modern way of life. The culture has focused on retaining and passing on their unique cultural legacy to future generations. And until recently, achieving significant academic growth was a distant aspiration, not a realistic possibility.

On March 26, 2007, at Monument Valley High School in Kayenta, Arizona, Voyager Expanded Learning hosted a celebration recognizing administrators, teachers, students and parents for their continued hard work and success in Kayenta primary and middle schools. After launching Voyager reading programs, Kayenta schools made significant gains in reading scores, becoming models for implementation through effective and strategic reading intervention.

The turning point came when Kayenta Primary School administrators started their search for a core reading program that would help their struggling readers become proficient. During the 2001-2002 school year Kayenta principal, Jacqueline Bennally and former assistant principal, Lorna Loy found and implemented the Voyager Universal Literacy System®; a proven literacy system based on scientific research and aligned to the Reading First program. Implementation of the program generated immediate results within the Kayenta student population.

The primary school's astonishing results quickly caught the attention of Kayenta Middle School principal, Marti Gilmore, who immediately implemented Passport Reading Journeys, a program that targets reading deficiencies of middle school students. Passport Reading Journeys also produced immediate results. Students were interested in the materials, motivated to learn and captivated by the engaging topics such as forensics, space exploration and natural disasters.

As a result of using Voyager education solutions, Kayenta Primary School ranked third on the 2006 Bureau of Indian Affairs list for most improved schools. In addition, according to Gilmore, there have been impressive gains made in reading scores at the middle school level on the Arizona state test, AIMS, which she says, are "110% because of Passport Reading Journeys."

Due to the success of Voyager reading programs, Kayenta recently purchased and is now implementing Vmath, Voyager's math intervention program at the primary level.
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Videos

Literacy Solutions: Kayenta takes you inside the elementary and middle school reading programs in this modern Native American community.

Math Madness: Watch Brooklyn students from multiple schools get wild about math in this exciting Vmath Live competition.

Adolescent Literacy: Bob Pasternack, Don Deshler and others discuss adolescent literacy issues–teachers and students in a Miami Beach school presentation.

Khristie Goodwin, Special Education Coordinator of the Year from Oxford City, Alabama, describes the community of educators that makes her different populations successful.