Newton Elementary 23-24

The BC curriculum highlights the fundamental importance of reading, which brings satisfaction, purpose and joy to our lives.

Our focus is on Literacy, targeting reading in the early grades.  Reading and understanding print are foundational skills for learning in school. Reading allows students to be successful across curricular areas, and to make connections to themselves, others and the world. 

Our cohort has grown to include numerous early primary students from several classrooms.  

Our students’ learning goals include: 

• Identifying sounds associated with letters

• Segmenting sounds in a word (bat = b - a - t)

• Blending letter sounds (b - a - t = bat)

• Demonstrating an understanding that words have meanings

In the following photos and videos students use developmentally appropriate reading, listening and viewing strategies to make meaning of text. They view print materials individually, with partners and with teachers.

Examples include: 

This video captures an example of a student and teacher using foam letters and a card with three sound boxes. The teacher guides the student to put the letter 'f' in the first box, 'a' in the second box and 'n' in the third box. The student is then asked to point to the letters and say the sounds. The student demonstrates the ability to identify the individual sounds in the word. Our learners participate in a variety of strategies to develop their reading skills and letter identification. Learners demonstrate their connections orally, using manipulatives and written work. 

A student using visuals to identify the correct CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word. We can hear the student sounding out the word after looking at the visual and reading "wet."

Literacy opens doors to academic success. The reading skills developed in the early grades build the foundation for learning in all subject areas.  

Our students’ learning goals included: 

• Identifying sounds associated with letters

• Segmenting sounds in a word (bat = b - a - t)

• Blending letter sounds (b - a - t = bat)

• Demonstrating an understanding that words have meanings

Examples include:

The  journal entries below show one student's growth in their ability to understand letter sounds and blend them together to form words. The first journal entry was completed in Term 1. Here the student is able to sound out and write the first, middle and end letter sounds of the word "basketball." In the second entry, the student is able to add more details to their writing. We can see that the student understands each word is separated with a space and is starting to use more vowels in words.

The three journal entries below show clear progression in writing ability. The student started with simple sentences in Term 1. In Term 2, the student evolves to include a bit more details in their sentences. In the last picture we see more complex and detailed descriptions, indicating a significant improvement in their ability to identify sounds associated with letters.

Our students like to play games as a strategy to develop their reading skills. The Roll the Dice game challenges students to connect a variety of words to make a complete sentence. Sometimes the sentences are silly and the students enjoy creating new sentences.

Results of Literacy Goals:

Overall, as a result of this targeted work, we see that our reading focus is positively impacting learners. The cohort recently undertook the Early Literacy Phonemic Awareness Test Series (ELPATS) to assess their phonemic awareness skills. 

The ELPATS results indicate that 60% of the cohort mastered the essential phonemic awareness skills. Our students showed particular growth in their  ability to isolate and say the first and last sounds in a variety of words.  We saw the majority of  students -  over 50% - demonstrate proficiency in segmenting and blending sounds, which are more challenging skills.  We are proud of the growth we saw in our students' literacy development,  particularly as the majority of our young learners are learning English as an additional language.

These results underscore the effectiveness of our Literacy strategies and highlight areas for targeted intervention to support the remaining  40% of students in achieving mastery. 

Moving forward, we would like to continue with our early learning literacy goals, with an emphasis on culturally relevant and inclusive visuals and text. We believe the materials students use can enhance engagement, connection and comprehension. Accessing student's prior knowledge with bilingual texts or images may better support our diverse learners and result in greater engagement,  and therefore greater success in our literacy goals. 

Next Steps:

1. Targeted Interventions: Implement focused phonemic awareness activities for students struggling with segmentation and blending. Include culturally relevant texts and images.
2. Continuous Monitoring:  Regularly assess and review student progress with our cohort to ensure ongoing development of phonemic skills, and share successful reading strategies. 
3. Curriculum Enhancement: Consider integrating additional phonemic awareness exercises into daily instruction to reinforce these foundational skills.

This evidence of learning highlights the overall proficiency in phonemic awareness within the cohort and provides a clear direction for future instructional strategies.