School board creates ‘proactive plans’ to improve literacy

The Near North District School Board has outlined “proactive plans that support student literacy.” These plans include investing in more literacy resources, “engaging staff in professional learning,” and “providing evidence-based assessment tools and implementing timely and effective literacy intervention programs.”

Erika Lougheed, the board’s chair, noted “it’s reassuring to know that staff are proactively seeking out resources designed to help educators help students.”

Professional learning will focus on instruction “in five key components of reading instruction including phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension,” the board emphasized. The board has hosted some online seminars on the topic, and a two-day summer learning literacy institute before the school year started.

Furthermore, four full-time school-based “literacy facilitators” have been hired by the board “to facilitate professional learning related to evidence-based literacy instruction and intervention.”

See: School board offering tutoring support programs

Pilot projects have also been developed to evaluate reading assessments. This past fall, 2,364 assessments were administered in preparation for the Ministry of Education’s plan to test reading levels twice a year for students in senior kindergarten to grade two. These tests begin this year.

The board also bought the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum, which helps younger students better recognize letters and language sounds. Primary classrooms will also have access to Flyleaf Publishing resources, which help kids struggling to read.

“Research suggests that children who may be at risk for reading failure can learn to read if identified early,” the board explained, “and provided with systematic, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension strategies.”

According to Life Literacy Canada, a non-profit organization that promotes adult learning, 48 per cent of adult Canadians have literacy skills that fall below a high-school level.

To help older students with reading, virtual tutoring is available via one-on-one sessions “with reading intervention coaches.” The board has hired 63 tutors for the cause. During the first term, more than 1,000 sessions were delivered to students across the board.

“I’m grateful to the team for its forward-thinking approaches that identify and support students who might need a little more help in the area of literacy,” explained the board’s vice-chair, Howard Wesley. “This report outlines to our families the work that goes on in classrooms every day to support our students.”

David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.