Coyote Creek Elementary 23-24

OUR FOCUS

Every day, our learners are presented with learning experiences to focus on thinking, reading, writing, and communicating in all curricular areas. Our goal is to help our students develop a strong literacy foundation that will support their participation in today’s world. fundamental to practice and demonstrate their literacy skills and capabilities.

Our students’ learning goals include:

• Developing reading fluency through phonemic and phonological awareness, word patterns, and word families.
• Making meaning of literature using developmentally appropriate reading, listening and viewing strategies.
• Deepen understanding of text through a variety of comprehension strategies before, during and after reading, listening or viewing.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to hear and identify sounds in spoken words. Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of how well children learn to read during the first two years of reading instruction. Where assessment results demonstrate limited phonemic awareness, our evidence consistently shows that with careful and intentional intervention, substantial gains are made, even with our most vulnerable learners.

Reading Fluency

At our school, we are looking to build students' reading fluency through promoting daily reading experiences. These reading experiences are the building blocks that our learners need to begin to make meaning and build understanding of the materials they read. 

Reading Comprehension

Comprehension refers to the ability to understand written words. It is different from the ability to recognize words. Recognizing words on a page but not knowing what they mean does not fulfill the purpose or goal of reading, which is comprehension. Comprehension adds meaning to what is read. Reading comprehension occurs when words on a page are not just mere words, but thoughts and ideas. Comprehension makes reading enjoyable, fun, and informative.  

Student Learning Experiences

We have a small group of learners in primary. These learners and classrooms have a variety of literacy instructional strategies that build upon the structure of decoding and phonemic awareness through small group instruction, decodable books and shared reading times.  We also have two intermediate cohorts who are following the literacy learning of our students over time. 

Student learning experiences during this school year included an increased focus on understanding phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, increased recognition of sight words, verbal reasoning and language structure. Small group instruction with an emphasis on foundational literacy skills including letter sounds, letter recognition and a broader understanding of written and visual text.

Our teachers are consistently building background knowledge and vocabulary in an effort to develop comprehension within the classroom.

Evidence of our students' learning demonstrates that our literacy focus is positively impacting all three cohorts of learners. When surveyed and asked to communicate their students' progress using the provincial assessment scale, teachers from all cohorts indicated that all students demonstrated growth in relation to our three literacy goals: 

• Phonemic Awareness 
• Reading Fluency 
• Reading Comprehension

Evidence

In early primary, we looked at how our students were performing on the ELPATS (Early Literacy Phonemic Awareness Tool).  Teachers have been engaging in conversations to enhance student learning experiences specific to phonemic awareness and decoding.

Based on teacher reflection at the conclusion of the ELPATS reporting period in which concepts were presented, practiced, and reviewed, 65% of the students in the cohort were able to use the features and conventions of language to express meaning in their writing and representing at a level from developing through to extending. With 35% of student still requiring support, this will remain an area of ongoing focus and priority.

These results show that we have a clear direction of how to present our literacy instruction to our early learners. We will continue to support students in isolating phonemes along with blending and segmenting. For students who are still developing in their ability to move through each module, we will need to provide them continued support until these skills are solidified.  

Classroom and Self Assessment: Comprehension

Teachers used a selection of both classroom assessments and student self assessments for our intermediate cohort groups to monitor comprehension proficiency.  Below is a teacher assessment to monitor student comprehension over time.

Teacher Assessment

It is demonstrated, through evidence provided by our cohort of students and reflected in the larger group of early intermediate students, that our writing focus is positively impacting learners. Based on teacher reflection at the conclusion of the period in which concepts were presented, practiced, and reviewed, 61% of the students in the cohort were able to use the features and conventions of language to express meaning in their writing and representing at a level from developing through to extending. With 39% of student still requiring support, this will remain an area of ongoing focus and priority.

At Coyote Creek, we are proud of the incredible progress our students have made in literacy this year.

Based on evidence of students' progress in relation to our learning goals, our next steps will include:

• Continuing to support the science of reading and actively use instructional strategies to decode letters and words. 
• Going deeper into reading a variety of genres to help students learn text structures and language that students can confidently transfer to their own literacy skills.
• Exploring a variety of decodable books to help build students' understanding and growth in literacy

Students are showing growth over time when progress is monitored in our primary and intermediate cohorts. Specifically, we will be monitoring reading levels and teacher reflections in relation to our primary cohort. For our intermediate cohort, we will track their growth through teacher reflections, FSA scores and student engagement with Reaching Readers. We will also continue to conference with teachers who have been engaged in sharing instructional strategies that they have been using in their classrooms and sharing their learning to further develop outstanding literacy practices.

Reading comprehension will remain a continued focus, as students still need support in strengthening this skill. It will remain a priority for our learners. Understanding where each student is in their reading journey is crucial for our classroom teachers, helping guide their next steps in instruction.

We will keep providing a diverse range of texts that reflect our students, their families, and their cultures. Our ongoing goal is to explore the role of language in shaping personal, social, and cultural identity, while encouraging students to connect personal experiences to texts to deepen their understanding of themselves, their community, and the world around them.

We aim to continue offering opportunities for reading both in the classroom and at home, fostering a love for reading.

Our ultimate goal is for our students to develop the necessary skills to become confident and capable readers, empowering them to carry these abilities beyond their time at Coyote Creek and become lifelong readers.