Patient Guidance Transforms Refugee Student’s Reading Journey

Through trauma-informed education principles, a creative access school in the Europe/West Asia region is helping refugee students discover their potential.

Fire Mountain Schools is in its 3rd year of operation and serves around 30 students.

One of those students, a 12-year-old Pakistani refugee, came to the school experiencing difficulty with reading but refusing to take an assessment.

Co-head of school Sarah says a meeting was set up with the girl’s parents, explaining the importance of completing the work assigned by this hybrid online school.

“During that conversation, this girl shared with us that she was embarrassed about her reading level because she knows that it’s below grade level,” Sarah said. “She was embarrassed to be 12 years old and reading at the level of a 2nd grader.”

After working through these feelings of shame, Sarah was able to convince the student to take the assessment. The results were poor, with an independent reading rate of 81 words a minute. According to Sarah, the minimum goal for a 12-year-old is 150 words a minute.

“I suspect, knowing this girl, that it was a case of ‘I’m going to, maybe not purposely, but maybe subconsciously do poorly,’” Sarah said.

Sarah began meeting with the student a couple times a week this fall, preparing her for her family’s upcoming move to Canada. Amazingly, in mid-October her reading rate improved to 176 words a minute. Experiencing this improvement helped lower the girl’s emotional barriers.

“Now, she is cooperative; she is happy, bubbly,” Sarah said. “I mean, she has a pretty strong personality, but she’s not combative and aggressive anymore, the way she was even just 5 months ago.”

Refugee students face many challenges when it comes to education. Most people experiencing displacement are hosted by low or middle-income countries that struggle to provide education resources. Many students will also experience racism and bullying in the national schools.

Co-Head of School Jeff says Fire Mountain Schools opens the doors for believers and non-believers to observe and participate in this Christ-centered community, while receiving the very best from its educators.

“It really seeks to be an unconditionally loving community, and I just can’t overstate how different that is compared to the environments that we’re in, where things are so much

more about power dynamics and patron relationships or family obligations or all these different things,” Jeff said. “To have something that is genuinely given for free with no obligation, this may be the first time that someone’s ever encountered that.”