Brookside Elementary 24-25

Where We Started...

After conducting initial reading assessments at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, several of our teachers gleaned from their research that many of their students were not at grade level with regards to reading fluency and comprehension and sought out opportunities to assist their students in bridging this gap. Our district has identified reading fluency as one of its key focus areas and has created an intervention called Responding to Readers, which several of our teachers were involved in during the 2022-2023 school year. The events of the past few years have had significant impacts on students in our learning communities. This initiative provides an opportunity for a small cohort of teachers to look closely at their readers and engage with a community of curious professionals exploring reading, quality assessment practices, and responsive instruction. Our teachers committed to this project and began working with district colleagues last year to further develop their capacity as learners, leaders, and educators, with the goal of improving reading practices for their students. These teachers shared their findings at the beginning of the year (admin professional development day) with the whole staff, and everyone agreed that they had reached the same conclusions about their learners. This was the start of a school-wide focus on Reading.

2024-2025 School Year - Continued Focus on Reading 

At our first professional development day in September 2024, the staff had an intentional and focused discussion around reading assessments and interventions. We agreed that we it was important to keep Reading as our student learning plan goal. We wanted to find out more about how students felt about their relationship with reading and find ways to encourage them to read more. In the fall, students were asked to complete a 7-question survey about their reading. Two questions that we were very interested in knowing more about were; "Do you enjoy reading?" and "Do you think of yourself as a good reader?" Students were asked the same questions in May of 2025. The results for "Do you enjoy reading" remained virtually unchanged when surveys were compared. However, when looking at, "Do you think of yourself as a good reader," the response, "most of the time" increased from 38% to 44% which is a trend in the positive direction. We are hoping that with more exposure to literature and an increased focus at school and home, next year we can continue the upward trend.

"Do you Enjoy Reading?" - from Fall 2024 Survey

"Do you enjoy reading?" - from Spring 2025 Survey

"Do you think of yourself as a good reader?" - from Fall 2024 Survey

"Do you think of yourself as a good reader?" - from Spring 2025 Survey

FSA Results

Again this year, we had almost all of our grade 4 and 7 students write the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA). It is one assessment tools schools use to determine where students are at in Literacy and Numeracy. Below, is the data for our school over the last 8 years in Reading & Literacy (which also includes writing), keeping in mind that we have only had close to 100% participation in the past two years. 

Comparing last year's Grade 4 results with the current data, we see a slight decrease in the Extending category (9.68% to 3.33%), a decrease in the OnTrack category from 48.39% to 44.09%, and an increase in the Emerging category from 41.94% to 53.76%.

Comparing last year's Grade 7 results with the current data, we see a slight increase in the Extending category (3.33% to 5.77%), an increase in the OnTrack category from 63.33% to 65.38%, and a decrease in the Emerging category from 33.33% to 28.85%, which is a trend upwards.

Currently 53.76% of our Grade 4 students, and 28.85% of our Grade 7 students are Emerging in Reading & Literacy (including writing). Our goal is to have the majority of our students On Track or Extending in Reading & Literacy.

English Language Arts - Reading - Focus Group (Grade 2/3 & Grade 3)

In our last year's focus group, we saw an increase in the number of students who moved from the Emerging and Developing categories to the Proficient and Extending categories in their Reading proficiency. For the 2024-2025 school year, the same teachers continued to use the following resources to support student learning:

• Daily 5
• Running Record (1-Minute)
• Reading Goal Bookmarks
• Words Their Way
• Catch Up the Code
• Jargon Journal
• Word Manipulation
• Epic
• Spark Reading

This year, students in the focus group were encouraged to develop confidence as both readers and writers. Their reading levels were assessed in November 2024 and then again in June 2025. Using the Daily Go-Go Method, they practiced independent literacy behaviours by engaging in activities such as read-to-self, read-to-someone, word work, listen-to-reading, and work-on-writing. Students focused on key reading strategies—including making connections, visualizing, inferring, and asking questions—to strengthen reading comprehension. Throughout the majority of the year, the students engaged in small reading groups aimed at enhancing students' comprehension, accuracy, and fluency. In the final term, students delved into three novel studies, allowing them to apply the reading strategies they had developed earlier. To conclude the year, they focused on reading to collect information across various subjects. Their weekly Jargon Journal, which enriched our vocabulary, encouraged students to express language in imaginative and playful manners. The key to creating an effective intervention, is to have a partnership and open communication between teachers, their students, and the families. All of these resources and interventions require students to be active participants in their learning. 

As the data reflects, there was a significant decrease in the number of students who were Emerging at the end of the year, and a significant increase in the number of students who were considered to be Extending in their reading abilities at the end of the school year, which is definitely a trend in the right direction.

Moving Forward...

Moving forward with our initiative, the staff has identified several areas to focus on to help support our learners. 

New Diagnostic Testing

The district is supporting new diagnostic testing for learners in Surrey, one of them being the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), which is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills. Our staff is committed to learning more about this diagnostic assessment and applying it in the fall of 2025.

Intervention Inservice in September

Our staff is also committed to participating in a series of in-service professional development opportunities in the fall of 2025 to deepen their understanding of the interventions outlined in the Focus Group section. Given the demonstrated effectiveness of these programs, we plan to expand the focus group to include a larger cohort of students.

Include Families

A large quantity of books were found in various areas around the school, so it was decided that we would create a Brookside Free Library, where students and their families could exchange books for free from a trolley outside the front door of the school at the end of each day. The library has been popular amongst students who are waiting to be picked up by family members or daycare after school. The students talk about which books they have read or might like to read. They enjoy the idea of not having to return it if they do not want to.

Continue to Foster Love of Reading

We have continued with our Reading Train this year. All Intermediate classes have a Primary buddy class that they read with every two months or so. We had Reading Under the Stars before winter break and then 3-Reading Train meeting throughout the year. Next year, we would like to continue to have meet ups with Reading Buddies, but increase the number of times they get together - perhaps once a month. 

We also continued our Reading Draw on Wednesdays this year. Students who have completed their weekly reading task in their classroom, can fill out a ballot and enter their name into a weekly draw for a prize. The winners' names are posted on a bulletin board outside the office. The students are very excited when they win!