J.T. Brown Elementary 24-25

Literacy is our Focus

Literacy is a core competency embedded across all areas of learning in BC’s curriculum and is central to supporting our learners develop reading, speaking, writing and listening skills as they collaborate, problem solve, share ideas, exchange information, and express their individuality.  

What Changed and Why?

One year ago, we became curious about students' reading at JT Brown Elementary.

"We have shifted to a heavier phonics focus in teaching reading...how is that affecting students' literacy skills?  It feels like we need to focus on reading to help build background knowledge and vocabulary."

                  - LST Teacher

The staff have shifted from a focus on writing to reading, engaging in professional learning grounded in the science of reading.  

Staff discussed the importance of reading:

  - The JT Brown Teaching Staff

Why Reading?

Reading is a complex skill including decoding of letters and their sounds, comprehension and connection.   We aim to build literacy skills including and beyond vocabulary in students so they feel confident and powerful to express themselves.

Building vocabulary will help achieve the following goals for our learners:

• Students know and understand the relationships between letters and sounds.
• Students can build on phonemic awareness to decode and understand unfamiliar words.
• Students improve comprehension and read for information and understanding.
• Students build background knowledge and their vocabulary in language through reading.

Students read words in many forms such as poetry, letters, scripts, descriptions, books, etc.  In combination with building a large vocabulary, students are practicing comprehending words in new ways. 

Students use a variety of strategies to help them comprehend what they are reading.  How do these strategies help students, and in what ways?  Knowing each student allows staff to guide them to reading materials that are at an appropriate level.  Classroom teachers and LST teachers work together to gather materials that support a student's learning at a level that is not too easy or too difficult.  

Students are motivated to read about things they know and about what interests them.  They are encouraged to discuss what they read and ask questions about literature.  How does background knowledge support comprehension?  Do our students have enough decoding skills, vocabulary and experiences to understand effectively?  

"Taking time to define words that are unfamiliar to students while reading a novel will improve their understanding during the novel study and also in other related subjects, such as Social Studies...it also helps to re-visit the new vocabulary a few times"

                                - Upper Intermediate Teacher

What We Will Do

Reading begins with letters and sounds.  Following the science of reading, our staff is focussed on first ensuring students at all levels have a solid phonemic awareness.  They then understand how to build on those skills and help students become confident readers who are able to comprehend what they read.   

"A strong focus on the basic CVC words and phonics is working for my students"

                                      - LST Teacher

Students in upper primary and early intermediate grades will have had a targeted and significant exposure to phonemic skills and will move to building more vocabulary and reading comprehension skills.  Teachers are curious about the bridge between phonemic awareness and the ability to build language and comprehension skills.  Furthermore, upper intermediate teachers will provide consistent instruction in word patterns to help students decode more complex words.

How Have the Students Been Doing?

Literacy is a fundamental life skill.  It is the ability to read, write, speak, and think in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world.  Communication – a core competency embedded across all areas of learning in BC’s curriculum – is central to supporting our learners develop their literacy skills as they collaborate, problem solve, share ideas, exchange information, and express their individuality.  Overall, our students are require support for language development and literacy skills. We want to increase instruction rooted in reading science with a focus on phonemic awareness skills at the early stages of reading in English, and moving on to comprehension of various sources of literature.

FSA results show us that Literacy skills have been trending upwards to pre-Covid levels, however seem to have dropped significantly for grade 4 students (12.39% on track) and somewhat for grade 7 students (55% on track).  It should be noted that there was an exceptionally low number of participants in the FSA during the 2020-21 (7-gr. 7)(7-gr. 4), 2021-22 (0-gr. 7)(8-gr. 4), and the 2022-23 (6-gr.7)(12-gr. 4) school years.  Results from the 2023-24 school year show that students were generally improving, and were following the district trend, however the 2024-25 school year shows a decrease in literacy skills.

Analysis of the Data So Far 

It is also worth noting:

     - There was an increase in students who are ELL in 2023-24, and again in 2024-25 which could explain the increase in the number of students who demonstrate emerging skills.  Staff are making adjustments to teaching literacy strategies to meet the needs of new Canadians.

      - The FSA participation rate increased significantly in the past two years, therefore the data prior to 2023-24 is not as reliable.

Occasionally at the classroom level, we have noticed an increase in the number of students who are emerging/developing at the end of the school year compared to the beginning of the year.  We believe there are a few variables that contribute to this increase:

1) Influx of new students who are new Canadians and new English language learners who are just learning English letters and sounds

2) Missing background knowledge that will help with reading comprehension 

Collecting Reading Data

Teachers focused on assessing and teaching decoding words and comprehension skills in students.  Students were assessed on basic phonemic awareness in all grades.  In upper primary and intermediate grades, there was also a focus on assessing reading comprehension.  

Most of the intermediate teachers spent time learning to use the same assessment tool for reading.  In the 2025-26 school year, they will focus on gathering information focused on phonemic awareness and decoding skills, and basic comprehension skills in the fall and then again in the spring.

Early primary students were assessed on letter/sound knowledge early in the 2024-25 school year and those who did not master all of the letters and their corresponding sounds were assessed again at the end of the year.  The ELPATS offer more comprehensive phonemic awareness assessment of students in grades K through 3.

Small Group Analysis 

Assessment of early primary students showed that by the end of the school year, a significant number of students had not mastered all of the letters and their corresponding sounds.  While students do improve from over the first few years of school as noted below in the ELPATS data (the first graph indicates the phonemic awareness mastery in K and the second indicates the same phonemic awareness mastery in grade 1), we want to see students gaining reading skills more quickly and increase basic letter/sound skills by the end of Kindergarten.

Indigenous Students

There is an exceptionally small population of Indigenous students at JT Brown Elementary. Each Indigenous student is supported by an Indigenous Connections Teacher (ICT) periodically through the year. With regards to reading, the Indigenous students at JT Brown are on track and enjoy reading about topics that are of interest.  Teachers and the Teacher Librarian ensure that there is literature created by Indigenous authors and opportunities to share and discuss this content with all students. 

Moving forward, the LST team will work with early primary teachers to introduce letters/sounds more quickly, in small group settings and with consistent examples/language.  Students will be supported by the LST team and the teacher librarian until they master all phonetic aspects for early reading.  

"Using consistent pictures associated with sounds helps our students learn letters more quickly.  We will have the classroom teachers and the teacher librarian use the same pictures coordinated with sounds to improve learning."

                                - LST teacher

FSA data also shows us that 78.36% of students in grade 4 are  emerging and not yet on track with literacy skills.  Our team believes that a focus on early phonemic awareness as is rooted in the science of reading, will improve literacy skills by the time that students reach intermediate grades.

K teachers will spend September getting students settled and then LST will meet with K and 1 teachers to discuss which students will be pulled to spend 15 minutes at the beginning of each day reviewing letters and sounds in methods aligned with the latest research on reading.  Care will be taken to identify students who are comfortable and confident at first to leave the classroom and go with another teacher.  The LST team will make the learning fun with songs, games and enticing activities all linked to phonemic awareness.  In addition, the Teacher Librarian will be aligned with the methods and language used to deliver instruction during student library time and some collaboration time.

In addition, we will have the primary staff using the same vocabulary to introduce and teach letter sounds.  The Teacher Librarian will be aligned with the methods and language used to deliver instruction during student library time and some collaboration time.  This will help students who are English Language Learners build vocabulary and learn sounds with words that are familiar and hopefully reduce the overwhelming abundance of words.  Consistency from class to class will hopefully help students be more successful year over year.

"Consistent repetition helps students retain letters and their sounds.  ELL students will learn to discern slight differences in sounds i.e. pulled vs jumped = pull-d vs jump-t."

                                    - LST teacher

The staff at JT Brown is excited to implement many ideas to further enhance the reading skills of their students and look forward to a focus on reading.