Westerman Elementary 23-24
OUR CONTEXT
Located on the shared, unceded, traditional territories of the Katzie, Semiahmoo, Kwantlen and other Coast Salish Peoples', in the City of Surrey, BC, Westerman Elementary is home to a wonderful and richly diverse learning community.
Building on the legacy of compassion, hard work, and service to community that was modelled by Surrey's 1997 Volunteer of the Year and the school's namesake, Margaret Westerman, our learners participate in a range of learning activities that expand their awareness, understanding and acceptance of others. They also put their learning into action and participate in a range of initiatives that support the health and well-being of their community, especially those who are more vulnerable. Whether collecting donations for the food bank, taking part in community environmental projects, organizing multicultural events, raising money for cancer research, or actively recycling and re-using, Westerman students show they care about others and appreciate any opportunity to give back to their community.
Westerman Elementary is a model of inclusion, understanding, and acceptance, regardless of background, socio-economic status, and identity. With dozens of languages, nationalities and cultures represented in the school community, students are welcomed to the school from around the world.
Westerman is literally a place "where the world learns and plays together".
In a safe and supportive environment, Westerman Elementary challenges all students to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitude essential to be positive, proactive, and successful learners, and contributing members of the community.
OUR LEARNERS
Children at Westerman arrive at school each day with a desire to learn more about themselves and others. Recognizing that the development of strong literacy skills is fundamental to student success across all subject areas, our learners are provided with rich opportunities to share stories with each other, to make connections through text to the world around them, and to develop an appreciation of the power of language to convey thoughts and ideas clearly and meaningfully. Our learners are encouraged to read and engage with a variety of texts every day, and to communicate their learning with others, both at home and at school. A particular emphasis is currently being placed on providing students with literacy resources and activities that better reflect the diverse lived experiences and cultural identities of our learners. Ultimately, our goal is help our learners build the strong foundations in literacy that are critical to their ability to participate fully in the world around them.
Learners engaged in reading and literacy skill development are evident throughout the school. The following are examples of our students, individually and collaboratively, using oral and visual representations, and written texts to:
Comprehend and Connect
Our learners can construct meaningful personal connections between self, text, and world.
Literature circles encourage students to engage in text in a student-centred and collaborative manner, and allows for discussion, choice, and differentiation. Learners are able select a text from a set of options that best aligns with their interests and abilities. This, in turn, tends to increase student engagement and improved reading skills. Students in this example met regularly in a “literature circle” with other students who selected the same text. As the group progressed through the text, students shared their thoughts and observations of what they had read, asked clarifying questions, and listened to the perspectives of others in the circle. Students learn to accept the ideas and thoughts of others, while being provided with a safe and supportive environment in which to share their own. The Literature Circle strategy tends to help students make deeper connections and strengthen their comprehension and communication skills.
Our learners can make sense of what they read by connecting, visualizing, questioning, and inferring as strategies to deepen their understanding and communicate their thinking.
Our students show their learning and understanding by using the strategy of connecting. Students are learning how to make thoughtful connections while reading. Students connect their prior knowledge, experiences, emotions to the text they are reading. This helps students better understand the material and engage with it on a deeper level. As the students read, they note their connections to themself, to other text, and/or to the world to build meaningful understanding.
Create and Communicate
Our learners can create stories to deepen awareness of self, family and community.
Our learners can participate in conversations and communicate their ideas confidently about topics they know and understand. Some strategies include story workshop, sharing thinking through creations and hands-on learning or building our reading powers to help us transform student thinking and practice.
Our early learners are always eager to share and tell stories. In this sample below, students create stories from loose parts through story workshop. The students are playing with expressive language and doing a story demonstration through the use of visuals. Each story is unique and students take turns listening and speaking. Our youngest learners enjoy connecting with others through story and so many great adventures are shared.
Literacy throughout our school can look differently for each learner. Within our school environment, each day consists of a plethora of literacy experiences that build and develop each child's reading ability.
OUR FOCUS
Every day, our learners are presented with opportunities to practice, develop and demonstrate their Literacy skills. Our team of educators provide our learners with these essential skills to set them up for success in today's rapidly changing world. To identify students’ overall strengths and areas for growth, we recently tracked literacy skills within a cohort of learners from diverse linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. The learners within the cohorts are representative of the diversity that exists in the rest of the school population.
Our students’ learning goals include:
- 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.
Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is important for overall reading development. Fluent reading improves comprehension, but also fosters a love for reading and builds confidence in our students. Fluency involves accuracy, rate, expression, and comprehension. At Westerman, we build reading fluency through promoting daily reading experiences through read-alouds, shared reading, and daily independent reading. By implementing these strategies and through continuous monitoring and adjustment, students can effectively nurture reading fluency empowering them to develop proficiency and become confident readers.
Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a lifelong skill that is essential for success in all areas of education and beyond the classroom. Students are working on developing strong reading comprehension skills to be better prepared to navigate the complexities of the world, critically evaluate information from various sources, and continue learning independently throughout their lives. Comprehension makes reading enjoyable, fun, and informative.
Students have been participating in cross-curricular (Language Arts and Social Studies) ancient mythology unit. After receiving direct instruction as a class, students were organized into groups of three and were asked to select a myth for study, to read the myth, and lead their peers in discussions related to their chosen mythology.
With a focus on comprehension and fluency, students were then asked to reflect on their reading and communication skills in relation to the project and to what extent they thought they had improved:
"I think I have made improvements in my fluency over time, and I did not stop in between sentences like I usually do when reading. One thing I think I needed was more expression, It would have enhanced the way I read, making it sound better. I also think it is important to know what's going on as you read, so afterwards you have a clear understanding of the story and don't need to look back to re-read it. Overall, I think I have improved in my reading."
"I really improved my reading just by volunteering to read, reading at home and reading at school."
"There is so much interesting stuff to read. I always learn new things when reading books. I have many fun series to read. There are many authors I learned about due to reading."
Evidence was collected from upper intermediate classes in relation to this goal.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Based on the evidence from our cohort of intermediate students, it is clear that our reading focus is positively impacting learners. After considering what would represent our student population, we selected Grade 6/7 students for the cohort.
Students were assessed for comprehension and fluency using the Provincial Proficiency Scale. Additionally, they received descriptive feedback throughout the year from the teacher, highlighting their strengths and identifying areas for improvement. The assessment data shows that our students have made progress in their ability to connect and comprehend. The goals identified were:
- Applying appropriate strategies to comprehend written, oral, and visual texts, guide inquiry, and extend thinking
- Synthesizing ideas from a variety of sources to build understanding
- Constructing meaningful personal connections between self, text, and world.
From winter to spring, we observed significant growth within the cohort. The number of students at the emerging level decreased by 18%, while those achieving the developing level increased by 5%. Additionally, there was a 5% rise in students demonstrating proficient reading skills by late spring, and the number of students at the extending level increased by 7%.
Overall, we noted substantial progress, with many students moving from emerging to developing in their reading abilities. There was also notable growth among students at the developing level, who improved their fluency and comprehension skills to become proficient. Lastly, some students who were already proficient advanced to the extending level in their reading skills.
Moving forward, our immediate focus will be to increase the number of students reading at a proficient level to 50%.
Moving forward
At Westerman, we take pride in the strides our students have made in enhancing their connection and comprehension skills. Based on the evidence of their progress towards our learning goals, our next steps will include:
- Continuing to foster fluency: We will intentionally use instructional strategies to provide opportunities for students to further develop their fluency skills.
- Supporting emerging readers: We will offer targeted support to students who are emerging and developing in fluency and comprehension, helping them grow as readers.
- Collaborating with literacy experts: We will continue our partnership with Surrey School District Literacy Helping Teachers to implement a reading program focused on comprehension skills.
- Expanding our cohort: For the 2024-2025 school year, we will expand our cohort and gather data from both primary and intermediate grade levels to gain a comprehensive school-wide perspective on students' comprehension and fluency. Our goal is to increase the number of students proficient in reading fluency.
At Westerman, we are committed to ensuring that all students acquire the literacy skills essential for success in school and beyond. As we continually monitor, reflect, and refine our learning plan, we will prioritize the equitable distribution of instruction, time, and resources, with a focus on supporting our most vulnerable learners.
Surrey Schools
Formed in 1906, the Surrey School District currently has the largest student enrolment in British Columbia and is one of the few growing districts in the province. It is governed by a publicly elected board of seven trustees.
The district serves the cities of Surrey and White Rock and the rural area of Barnston Island.
