Harold Bishop Elementary 24-25

Reading Literacy

Literacy is essential for learning, personal development, and well-being.  It is our intention to collect evidence of learning from primary learning and our intermediate students to give us insight into how we are meeting our literacy goals across different grade levels.

In the BC (British Columbia) Learning Standards, reading fluency is addressed in both early primary (K-3) and intermediate (4-7) levels. The standards focus on various aspects of reading fluency, including accuracy, expression, and comprehension. Below are three general themes/standards for reading fluency in both stages:

Kindergarten to Grade 3 (K-3):

1. Decoding and Word Recognition:

   • Students develop skills in recognizing and decoding words, building a strong foundation in phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, and the ability to blend sounds to form words.

2. Fluency and Expression:

   • As students progress, they work on reading with increasing fluency, which includes accuracy, appropriate pace, and expression. This ensures that students not only decode words but also understand and convey meaning through tone, phrasing, and punctuation.

3. Comprehension and Understanding:

   • Early elementary students focus on reading comprehension by understanding the meaning of the text, answering questions, making predictions, and summarizing key details. Fluency is linked to comprehension, as it supports smoother reading and better understanding of the content.

Grades 4 to 7 (4-7):

1. Reading with Fluency and Accuracy:

   • Students continue to develop their ability to read fluently, with emphasis on accuracy in decoding complex words, smoothness in reading, and appropriate pacing for different types of texts (e.g., narratives, informational).

2. Reading for Meaning and Analysis:

   • Students analyze and interpret texts in more depth, understanding not just surface-level meaning but also underlying themes, characters, and structures. Fluency continues to support this as students read more challenging material and engage with it critically.

3. Use of Text Features and Structure:

   • In later grades, students use their fluency skills to navigate and understand complex texts, utilizing text features (headings, subheadings, bold print) and structural elements (narrative, expository, etc.) to enhance comprehension and retention.

These themes support the development of fluent, skilled readers who can navigate texts with accuracy, understanding, and insight.

The universal assessment screeners used by teachers to further guide teaching instruction are the DIBLES and ELPATS.

What are Universal Screeners?

Screening is a brief, reliable check-in that helps us see how students are progressing with essential early reading skills. It’s not a test, but a tool to guide instruction and ensure we’re adequately supporting the students that need more. It is one part of quality assessment information.

 An analogy might be like medical screening for a serious illness. Preventative screening detects problems before they become big problems. After further diagnostic assessment, patients are prescribed a treatment plan and provided with what they need in a timely manner that targets their specific issue. Patients receive different doses of treatment and are monitored for progress. The goal is to support the person getting back on track for good health. 

 Early literacy screening fulfills a similar purpose – detecting the possibility of a child’s reading difficulty before it becomes a big problem that is much more difficult to support. The quick assessment measures uncover which students likely need something more so we can respond in a timely manner.

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through grade 7. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. DIBELS is a predictor of literacy strategies.

DIBELS Indicators 

Blue /Negligible Risk: Students with negligible risk are on track for reading success and should continue to receive the instruction they are getting – sometimes called “Core Support.” We might call these students "Above Benchmark."

Green /Benchmark: Student obtained the benchmark score. Odds of achieving subsequent literary goals: 80-90%.

Yellow/Strategic: Student fell below benchmark, but is within a range of scores for which success is more difficult to predict. To ensure success, it is recommended that these students receive targeted additional support in the particular skills area, with regular monitoring. Odds of achieving subsequent early literacy goals: 40-60%.

Red/Intensive: This score indicates that the student is unlikely to achieve reading goals without additional, targeted instructional support. The intensive support needed should incorporate something more or something different from the core curriculum. Odds of achieving subsequent early literacy goals: 10-20%.

Teachers administered the DIBELS screening assessment tool in the Fall and late Spring to determine growth in student reading fluency and accuracy. Below is the data collecting across our grade 2 - 7 grade groups. 

DIBELS Literacy Progress Analysis

At the beginning of the school year, DIBELS data revealed a distribution of students across all risk levels, with a significant number identified in the Strategic (Yellow) and Intensive (Red) categories, indicating a need for targeted and intensive interventions. Over the course of the year, consistent instruction and support led to measurable progress, as evidenced by an increased number of students moving into the Benchmark (Green) and Above Benchmark (Blue) levels by year’s end. This shift reflects improved odds of students meeting future literacy goals, suggesting that our tiered intervention strategies—particularly for students in the yellow and red zones—were effective. Continued use of DIBELS for progress monitoring will support early identification and responsive instruction, helping ensure all students stay on track for reading success.

ELPATS: Early Literacy Phonemic Awareness Tool Surrey

The ELPATS is a formative assessment tool designed for classroom teachers to monitor learners' development of phoneme-level phonological awareness skills.  Assessment commences in kindergarten with periodic monitoring through the primary years until mastery of each skill is achieved. The number of sections a student needs to show mastery in can vary, but usually, it would be around 6-7 out of 8 sections with scores meeting or exceeding the proficiency threshold. 

Teachers administered  ELPATS assessment tool in the Fall and late Spring to determine growth in student reading fluency and accuracy. Below is the data collecting across our K -1 grade groups. 

ELPATS Phonemic Awareness Progress Analysis

The ELPATS assessment, administered in both Fall and late Spring, provided valuable insight into the development of phonemic awareness skills among our K–1 students. Initial Fall results indicated varying levels of proficiency across the 8 assessment sections, with many students not yet meeting the mastery threshold. By late Spring, data showed significant growth in reading fluency and phonological accuracy, with an increasing number of students demonstrating mastery in 6 or more sections. This progress suggests that focused phonemic instruction throughout the year effectively supported early literacy development, and continued monitoring will help ensure sustained growth toward reading proficiency.

It is demonstrated through evidence gathered from our cohort of students and reflected in the larger group of primary and intermediate students that our our literacy reading focus is positively impacting learners. 

Language from the provincial assessment scales was used to identify successes and remaining challenges. There was a noted improvement for all students identified in school wide in relation to the literacy reading goals. These goals included: 

• Comprehend and connect (reading, listening, viewing):
  Students are expected to understand and interpret texts of various types (fiction, nonfiction, visual, digital, etc.) and make connections between texts and their own experiences or other knowledge.

• Use strategies to understand text:
  Students learn to apply before-, during-, and after-reading strategies—such as predicting, questioning, visualizing, summarizing, and inferring—to support their understanding of what they read.

• Think critically about texts:
  Learners are encouraged to analyze and evaluate texts, considering things like author’s purpose, bias, perspective, and text features, to deepen their understanding and develop critical literacy.

Using the British Columbia Proficiency Scale we tracked overall student performance using the above curricular competencies over the course of school year. 

Literacy Proficiency Analysis Statement:

Evidence gathered from our K–7 cohort shows that our school-wide focus on literacy reading has had a positive impact across all grade levels. Using the British Columbia Proficiency Scale, students demonstrated notable growth from the beginning to the end of the school year in the key areas of comprehension, strategic reading, and critical thinking. For example, there was a marked reduction in students at the "Emerging" level and an increase in those reaching "Proficient" or "Extending" across nearly all grades. This trend suggests that targeted literacy strategies and classroom instruction have effectively supported student progress in meeting curricular competencies.

Next Steps: Building on Our Literacy Momentum

As part of a province-wide effort, our school will continue  using universal screening to help identify students strengths and areas for growth in foundational reading skills.

Our teachers are involved in our district Responding to Readers  - this is the district literacy team’s model for supporting schools with the BC Ministry initiatives. It’s an opportunity for schools to connect with support and resources, including help with literacy practices and assessments, interpreting data, and planning instruction for student success.

With reading as a school-wide focus, we are committed to deepening and sustaining our efforts into the next school year. Staff feedback highlights a strong desire to continue using structured, evidence-based programs such as UFLI, Heggerty, and DIBELS, with an emphasis on starting these routines earlier in the year to maximize impact.

Key next steps include:

• Early and Consistent Implementation: Begin literacy programs like UFLI and DIBELS from the start of the school year, ensuring they are embedded into daily schedules.
• Targeted Small Group Instruction: Continue and expand the use of small group instruction to provide differentiated support based on student needs.
• Focus on Fluency and Comprehension: Incorporate more fluency-building activities (e.g., timed readings, readers’ theatre, repeated readings) and comprehension strategies (e.g., paragraph shrinking, story retelling).
• Morphology and Vocabulary Development: Increase focus on word work and morphology, especially in intermediate grades, to strengthen vocabulary and decoding skills.
• Holistic Assessment Practices: Use a variety of assessment tools—including DIBELS data, teacher observations, digital portfolios, and self-assessments—to guide instruction and monitor progress.
• Collaboration and Reflection: Foster ongoing collaboration among staff to share strategies, reflect on practice, and explore new tools for assessing reading comprehension and fluency.

By building on this year’s successes and refining our practices, we aim to create a cohesive, responsive, and engaging literacy experience for all learners.