Prince Charles Elementary 25-26

Literacy is the ability to read, write, speak and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world. Literacy is essential for learning, personal development, and well-being. As a staff, we have focused on reading, engaging in professional development in the science of reading. The Science of Reading identifies five pillars of reading development: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. 

Fluency & Comprehension

Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with appropriate expression. A fluent reader doesn’t have to stop and decode most words, which allows them to focus on understanding the meaning of what they’re reading. Fluency acts as a bridge between recognizing words and fully comprehending a text, when students read smoothly and with expression, their comprehension naturally improves because their cognitive energy is spent on meaning, not decoding. We have two cohorts that we are focusing on, a division of K students and two divisions of Grade 7.  These classes are taught by our literacy leads.

Fluency & Core Competencies

Reading fluency supports the development of the Core Competencies in the BC Curriculum by helping students more fully access and engage with learning. When a student reads with greater accuracy, pace, and expression, they are better able to understand texts and communicate their ideas clearly (Communication competency). Improved fluency also allows the student to focus on deeper thinking skills, such as making connections, asking questions, and analyzing meaning (Thinking competency). As fluency grows, the student often builds confidence and independence as a learner, supporting their Personal and Social development. Overall, strengthening reading fluency will help the student participate more actively and successfully across all areas of learning.

Kindergarten Cohort

One area of focus in the student learning plan is the use of Acadience Reading assessments to identify students’ levels of risk in developing reading fluency. This data helps determine whether students are performing at, above, or below expected benchmarks, and highlights specific areas of need. By using this information, educators can provide targeted instruction and monitor progress over time, ensuring that appropriate supports are in place to strengthen reading development.

In Kindergarten, teachers are implementing the UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) Foundations program to provide structured and explicit instruction in foundational literacy skills, including phonemic awareness, decoding, and early fluency.

We focused on a cohort of 16 Kindergarten students, as this was the first year Acadience was administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. The following graphic outlines the progression of literacy development in Kindergarten, including the Acadience measures and the points in the year at which they are assessed.

For the purpose of this student learning plan, we took a closer look at students who moved beyond sound awareness (PSF) into decoding (CLS) by the end of the year, as an indicator of their response to instruction.

Analysis of the data shows that 81% of students developed foundational reading skills by progressing from phoneme awareness (PSF) into decoding (CLS). This indicates that the majority of students are able to both hear sounds and connect those sounds to print, an important marker of strong Kindergarten literacy development.

Moving forward, continued focus will be placed on supporting students in developing automatic word reading (NWF‑WWR) to increase the number of students transitioning into fluent reading. The Acadience will be administered to all Grade 1 students throughout the year.  Our Grade 1 teachers will continue using UFLI by breaking students into targeted instructional groups (ex. PSF vs CLS vs WWR) based on the Acadience data.

Grade 7 Cohort 

Another focus of our student learning plan is a cohort of 48 Grade 7 students, where the emphasis shifts from learning foundational reading skills to strengthening reading fluency and comprehension.

Using DIBELS (Acadience) measures such as Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) and MAZE, we aim to identify students who may have underlying fluency gaps, as well as those who struggle with understanding complex text. While some students demonstrate adequate reading rate and accuracy, they may still require support in comprehension, vocabulary, and meaning-making. This data allows educators to more precisely target instruction, ensuring students are supported in developing both fluent reading and deeper comprehension skills necessary for success in intermediate grades.

Grade 7 teachers, who also serve as literacy leads, engaged students in daily oral reading fluency practice throughout the year. Overall, the data collected at the beginning, middle, and end of the year shows that students are making steady gains in reading fluency, as evidenced by consistent growth in ORF scores. The following graphic, hilights the main differences between the ORF and the MAZE measures...

Here, two of our grade 7 students discusses reading strategies they have practiced this year when doing oral reading fluency practice.

Results

Analysis of growth across the cohort indicates that 67% of students demonstrated improvement in oral reading fluency (ORF), with an average increase of 8.6 words correct per minute. In contrast, comprehension growth, as measured by MAZE, was more consistent, with 93% of students showing improvement and an average increase of 9.7 points. MAZE results also showed a slight dip mid-year, followed by significant improvement by the end of the year.

Overall, the data highlights the importance of continuing to focus instruction on comprehension strategies, vocabulary development, and deeper thinking about text—particularly for students who demonstrate strong fluency but inconsistent comprehension. This data will guide our next steps, including maintaining explicit instruction in fluency while placing a greater emphasis on vocabulary and comprehension to support students in making meaning from increasingly complex texts.

Inquiry

In addition to our Grade 7 cohort, our literacy leads have focused on 5-7 Grade 5 students from four Grade 5 divisions. Literacy leads have used release time to demonstrate how to use the DIEBELS screening and progress monitoring tool and to model fluency practice instruction with the 4 divisons of learners that include these students.

Our teacher librarian has also focused collaboration time with these divisions to focus on reading stamina based on the strategies in Donalyn Miller’s “The Book Whisperer,” specifically building reading stamina through daily sustained silent reading and introducing book talks to spark curiosity. Stamina and fluency inter-connected in their relation to reading comprehension. When a student reads fluently, they use less mental energy to decode words. This makes reading feel easier and more enjoyable, allowing them to read for longer periods without becoming tired or frustrated. In turn, stamina strengthens fluency because the more time students spend reading, the more practice they get with word recognition, phrasing, and expression. Over time, this consistent practice improves fluency. Both skills directly impact comprehension: if a student struggles with fluency, reading feels slow and effortful, which can reduce stamina. Likewise, if stamina is low, they may not read enough to build fluency skills. Together, fluency and stamina create the foundation for understanding and enjoying text.

Part of our multi-year plan, is to focus on our Grade 5s this year, to monitor this cohort again next year and then finally Grade 7.  We are curious to compare the data of this year and next year’s Grade 7s to this year’s cohort of Grade 5s when they are in their Grade 7 year (2027-2028).  How will using screening tools and progress monitoring, in addition to daily fluency practice starting in Grade 5 impact students by the time they reach Grade 7?

Morphology

Next year we are introducing Bug Club Morphology as a literacy resource for Grade 4-7, designed to teach morphological awareness, that is, how words are built from meaningful parts such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Its purpose is to help students better understand word structure, spelling, and vocabulary so they can become stronger readers and writers.

This resource empowers students through explicit instruction in word structure, which improves vocabulary knowledge, word recognition, and reading comprehension. The program includes a research‑based scope and sequence, explicit lessons, teacher scripts, word‑study activities, reading passages, and integrated vocabulary, oral language, and writing tasks. 

This aligns with Science of Reading research showing that explicit morphology instruction strengthens spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, particularly in upper elementary and middle grades.

Our plan, is to use summer professional development and the admin day in September to focus on learning and modeling this resource so teachers feel confident using it as an instructional tool during the 2026/2027 school year.

Responding to Readers

Three new teachers will assume the literacy lead role for Responding to Readers to build school-wide capacity. They will work as part of a school-based cohort alongside this year’s literacy leads and other interested teachers. The focus of Responding to Readers is to strengthen teachers’ ability to use reading assessment and screening data to inform responsive, evidence-based instruction. Through collaborative data inquiry, teachers will deepen their understanding of student reading development, monitor progress over time, and design targeted instructional responses. This work emphasizes building data literacy, implementing high-impact classroom routines, and making teacher impact on student learning visible through ongoing reflection and adjustment of practice. Expanding the number of teachers with access to district professional learning, development, and collaboration will strengthen instructional consistency and deepen expertise in literacy practices across the school.   

Screening Tool 

Primary teachers (Kindergarten through Grade 3) will implement the Acadience screening tool with all learners to support early identification of literacy strengths and areas of need.

To ensure effective use of the data, teachers will participate in targeted professional learning during summer professional development sessions and on the September administrative day. This learning will focus on:

• administering the screening tool with fidelity
• interpreting Acadience data (including composite scores and subtests)
• using screening results to inform Tier 1 instruction and targeted interventions
• identifying students who require additional support (Tier 2 and Tier 3)

The goal of this work is to build staff capacity to use screening data responsively, ensuring that instruction is aligned to student needs and that early literacy gaps are addressed proactively.