Our Story

It started with a question

In 2018–2019, an IMLS National Leadership Planning Grant brought tribal leaders, librarians, and researchers together at the Medicine Spring Library (Blackfeet Community College & Tribal Library) to study one question: what stands between Blackfeet children and the books they need?

We found five barriers:

No easy access to a public or tribal college library
Libraries aren't always a familiar part of daily life
Racial tension at public libraries bordering tribal land
Tribal college libraries lack funding for literacy programs
Poverty crowds out everything else

Even though parents clearly valued reading, kids were growing up in book deserts — not from any single cause, but a tangle of overlapping barriers. That planning year became the foundation for something bigger.

That led to Reading Nation Waterfall

A three-year, IMLS-funded initiative — $707,537 in federal funding, matched by $702,517 in partner cost share.

Led by San José State University, across California, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Montana.

The name is our metaphor: like a waterfall feeding the streams and rivers below, we set out to saturate kids' everyday lives with good books, culturally relevant programming, and stronger connections to their local libraries — removing time, cost, and convenience as barriers to reading.

Why it matters — the numbers

The gap is real:

Native American 4th grade reading scores have dropped 3% since 1992 — every other group rose
16 points below the national average; 80% read below proficient level
10.1% dropout rate — more than double the national average
Only 17% continue education after high school, vs. 60% nationally

But reading proficiency — not race — predicts graduation. A 10-year study of nearly 4,000 students found:

Kids not proficient by 3rd grade are 4x more likely to leave without a diploma
The furthest behind: 6x more likely

Close the reading gap, and the achievement gap closes with it.

Access changes outcomes, starting young. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends reading aloud from birth, since these earliest years shape a child's developing brain. The research backs it up:

Top-performing Native 4th graders shared three things in common: culturally relevant school library materials, 25+ books at home, and a computer
Kids with 80+ books at home show cognitive benefits into adulthood
Average home library: 125 books in higher-income homes vs. 73 in lower-income homes

Choice matters too. When kids pick their own books, they read more and test scores rise; when reading feels assigned, they disengage. Culturally relevant, self-selected books aren't a nice-to-have — they're core to how reading habits actually form.

Our model: libraries as one connected network

Rather than treating literacy as any single library's job, we treat every school, tribal, public, and college library as one access point in a larger network — like a mesh network, where individual nodes are limited alone but far stronger connected together.

Our own 10-year study of North Carolina's public libraries found real evidence for this: circulation per capita directly predicts a community's graduation rate, and funding and visitation are what drive that circulation in the first place. Libraries aren't peripheral to outcomes — they're one of the clearest levers we have.

We also work with tribal communities to shape collections and programming, not just consult them after the fact — following the same approach as respected Indigenous library programs elsewhere in the country.

A founding partner: Little Free Library

100,000+ registered libraries across 50 states and 91 countries, sharing 120 million+ books
Active in 20+ Head Start classrooms and 500+ public library systems
An installation at the National Museum of the American Indian
Helped establish the Navajo Nation's first Little Free Library, led by advisory committee member Duane Yazzie and four sixth-grade students

As LFL's Executive Director Greig Metzer puts it, the goal is to be "an outpost and promoter of traditional library services," not a replacement for them.

"Reading has the power to transport us and move us beyond the present, to show readers what's possible, the places they could go." — Duane Yazzie

Where we're headed

Reading Nation Waterfall is both a pilot and a blueprint — testing what works, community by community, then building a research process other tribal nations can use too.

By building bridges between community networks and individual learning journeys, it supports both traditional reading skills and emerging digital competencies, expanding access to books, reading, and innovative literacy initiatives.