Appendix

Trailblazer: Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board

David DeSantis, Director of Education, Algonquin and Lakeshore C.D.S.B.

Even before the Inquiry was launched, some leading districts and many educators had already begun to critically examine their approach to literacy instruction and worked to align their practices with the science of reading.

In 2018, our multidisciplinary team started to have conversations around the gaps that they were seeing in primary classrooms and beyond in terms of overall literacy skills. Clinical staff were seeing very clear patterns in psychoeducational assessments that were not due to an increase in exceptionalities, but rather deficits in phonological and phonemic awareness and phonics that could have been addressed in classrooms long before students were formally assessed.

This led to deep conversations about restructuring Tier 1 instruction, assessments, and special education supports in schools for all primary students. Our team recognized this was an equity issue that could only be addressed with a system plan that laid out a systematic plan to build educator and leader capacity, starting with the patterns we were seeing and building on the learning from year to year.

Virtual staff training started during the pandemic, which was obviously less than ideal. However, the moral imperative driving the work was that kids could not wait. We went into staff training not knowing what the response might be, yet we were met with enthusiasm and relief. Staff felt validated that we were highlighting the concerns that they were seeing in their classrooms but didn’t yet have the skills or tools to address.

At the end of 2020, formal Science of Reading goals were included in our Multi-Year Strategic Plan (MYSP), to ensure that all schools were aligned in our commitment to this work. The MYSP and School Improvement Plans for Student Achievement & Well-Being (SIPSAWs) also became leaner at this time to decrease competing priorities. This allowed schools to create focused goals and provide adequate support and monitoring to achieve them.

In the end, we see our work at the ALCDSB with respect to the Science of Reading as an integral part of our mission statement, where each member is loved, inspired and successful.

Lakehead Public Schools Commit to OHRC Right to Read Recommendations

Whitney Lundstrom, Educator

Lakehead Public Schools shares the OHRC’s commitment to improving Literacy practices for every student. Since early 2021, Lakehead Public Schools have used professional learning opportunities to educate their teaching staff on the recommendations made in the Right to Read Report. Lakehead Public Schools led discussions and professional development sessions to identify, and plan to remove the barriers such as cueing systems and balanced literacy practices to align with the recommendations made in the Right to Read Report.

During professional learning opportunities offered to elementary French Immersion teachers and staff, we explored the Science of Reading as well as the 6 components of effective literacy instruction. Using resources such as: Pratique Phonémique, Alphagraphe, I can read in French and decodable texts to deliver explicit, systematic, and direct instruction to whole class, small groups and individual students.

Lakehead Public Schools recognizes the importance in identifying students' needs in early Literacy. Teachers completed IDAPEL training and implemented screeners in their classes. The data from those screeners has been used to plan and implement interventions with a focus on early reading strategies.

Lakehead Public Schools continues to grow, refine our teaching practices, and welcome new learning opportunities to offer the most equitable and accessible Literacy instruction to support all students.

Trillium Lakelands District School Board Improves Reading Instruction - For ALL

Lindsey Sheldrake, Literacy Consultant and Melanie Blackburn, Early Years Consultant

Our commitment to student achievement is the reason TLDSB took a proactive approach to the OHRC report. In April 2022, TLDSB Director Wes Hahn brought together educators from across the board to form a “Literacy Advisory Panel” to discuss reports and get educator input on effective next steps. Following the panel discussion, Superintendent Jay MacJanet and his Curriculum Team created a 3-year strategic plan to improve literacy instruction, with the first year of the plan to be in place by September 2022. Strategic moves initiated in Year 1 have had a significant, positive impact on student achievement in reading during the 2022-23 school year:

Professional development and other resources provided to all Kindergarten and Grade 1 educators on foundational literacy skills and how to teach them
Reading tutors employed to support students in Grades K-8
Classroom resources provided to help teachers use new concepts proficiently
New decodable texts purchased so students can apply phonics and phonological awareness as they learn to read
Provided a curriculum coach in each school to help implement shifts in literacy instruction
Provided tools for assessment of the foundational skills
Engaged in a pilot project to evaluate screening tools

Lindsay Nelan, a Kindergarten teacher at Monck Public School, began implementing the shifts for teaching reading instruction immediately. “We have come together as a board to learn about the foundational literacy skills, broken down the steps for quality assessment practices, and were given the resources needed to begin our shift in instruction right away. Now, classroom to classroom, school to school, all students are able to receive similar explicit instruction which provides continuity for when students move up in grades, or even if they move schools.”

For Year 2, TLDSB moved forward with Early Reading Screening (ERS) and invested in training the curriculum team as mentors to ensure effective and sustainable system implementation. Since September 2023, Coaches and Consultants have been directly supporting educators and engaging them in professional development through in-school PLC’s, which have focused on effectively collecting, analyzing and responding to screener reading data. To date, every K-3 educator in our 41 Elementary schools have now been trained in Acadience and are using it as an effective measure in their classroom practices. The curriculum team continues to work alongside educators daily in their assigned schools to support implementation of the new curriculum through co-planning, teaching, and facilitating learning opportunities at staff meetings, PD Days, and lunch-and-learn sessions.

These are exciting times to be in education and we are proud of how the TLDSB learning community has risen and grown as a learning organization to support learning for ALL.

Greater Essex County District School Board’s Transformative Literacy Journey

Angeline Humber, Teacher Consultant - FSL

The GECDSB recognized the need to create an equitable, inclusive, and accessible literacy learning experience for our students in all programs. Using the Right to Read Inquiry report and recommendations as our guide, the GECDSB literacy team enacted an ambitious, but necessary, implementation plan with an initial focus on K-3 reading instruction. We knew that successfully implementing this plan required empowering and building the capacity of our educators.

Our literacy team, composed of Special Education and Program Department team members, was able to draw on the expertise of the individuals within the team, and we sought opportunities to work with organizations and experts from outside our school district to develop and deepen our own knowledge and bridge the gaps between research and practice. Understanding that each school community had unique strengths and understandings in relation to structured literacy, we worked within small, school-based teams to determine each school’s level of proficiency and tailored learning to their needs.

Having long recognized the importance of universal early screening, we began Acadience Reading and IDAPEL implementation training in 2019. Our central office team, Learning Support and English as a Second Language teachers have been implementing these screening tools and gathering data to inform decisions. We are now working to expand screening capacity by providing training to all Kindergarten to Grade 2 educators.

We also critically examined the literacy resources that were in use in our schools. A gap analysis allowed the team to determine which resources were outdated, did not align with current research around reading, or had no connection to current Ontario curriculum documents. The team sourced and purchased new resources for our classrooms, giving us a more contemporary and diverse library of resources that not only reflect the various identities of children in our system, but also align with the evidence-based approach to assessing and teaching reading. We identified a need for a research-based diagnostic assessment for French Immersion, and with the financial support of the Ministry of Education, we were able to assemble an interdisciplinary team of specialized members from across Canada to develop a new diagnostic assessment tool.

We are proud of our work around effective Tier 1 instruction in the K-3 classroom. The Right to Read report served not only as our guiding document but also as a catalyst for positive change within our educational landscape. We continue to work collaboratively to empower educators and their students in our continued efforts to address the recommendations of the Right to Read report.

Waterloo Region District School Board Initiates Job-Embedded Professional Development

Ines Bijl, Educator

The WRDSB takes great pride in the work we are doing to implement a structured literacy approach to teaching reading throughout the system. This journey began in the summer of 2021, preceding the publication of the Right to Read Report. Since then, we have gained valuable insights and made numerous adjustments that have significantly supported administrators and educators and ultimately impacted students.

One significant change at the WRDSB is the introduction of the half-time Reading Resource Teacher (RRT) role. The RRTs are school-based educators who play a crucial role in assisting colleagues with implementing explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. RRTs offer timely, recursive, and focused support to classroom educators, enhancing effective Tier 1 instruction. They have been instrumental in piloting the new board-wide literacy initiatives, including UFLI and Acadience. A key part of their role has been the effective execution of progress monitoring and responding to data through small-group instruction in classrooms.

RRTs and trained educators are opening their classrooms to educators from schools that have not yet had the opportunity to receive training, allowing them to engage in collaborative efforts with their peers who are actively applying a structured literacy approach.

We are immensely proud of every educator at WRDSB for their ongoing efforts in implementing structured literacy in their classrooms and for their dedication to assisting every student on their path to becoming proficient and literate learners!

Greater Essex County District School Board Develops and Shares Classroom Resources

The new Language Conventions Continuum (Appendix B3) details components of syntax, sentence structure, grammar, capitalization and punctuation that should be taught explicitly and systematically. Explicit instruction in these aspects of language was not included in the 2006 Language Curriculum. For many teachers, explicitly teaching the intricacies of language is entirely new.

Seeing a need for resources to support educators in implementing these new expectations, Greater Essex Speech Language Pathologist Melinda Hinch sourced and adapted open-source lesson plans from the Syntax Project. Melinda adapted these Australian resources for Ontario and mapped the lessons onto the new curriculum. In addition to providing these excellent resources to their own educators, Greater Essex has provided a wonderful gift to educators across the province by posting them on ONlit.org.

First Nations School’s Inspirational Response to the Right to Read

Catherine Shawana, K-8 Curriculum Lead Teacher, Lloyd S. King Elementary on the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation

As a K-8 Curriculum Lead Teacher and a First Nations educator working in a federally funded, band-operated First Nation school, responding to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read Report was an act of responsibility to uphold the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession. Inspired by the profound research and knowledge of those before me, a vision to change literacy instruction began to form. When the Right to Read Report was released, it became blatantly evident that Code-protected groups sustained the greatest achievement gap. The systemic challenges at first seemed too large to address. We had to ask ourselves what could we do as educators committed to students and student learning?

We delved deep into learning about the Science of Reading in the Spring of 2020. We identified that building our knowledge, capacity, and understanding of the research was our first step. Our professional development journey began with watching videos, listening to various podcasts, participating in webinars, and building a professional library of the most recent publications. The International Dyslexia Association of Ontario had a wealth of information to help develop this capacity. We attended the Literacy and Learning Conference and participated in Top Ten Tools and the Basics of Decoding and Spelling Instruction training. At this point, we were ready to implement our new learning and became serious about the shift.

Our shift from a balanced to a structured literacy approach began by implementing core components. Once we adopted a scope and sequence, we could build on from there. It wasn’t much longer before we were researching universal screeners, and in the fall of 2023, we decided to screen ALL our students from K-8. We knew the screener would provide us with the data to validate our Tier 1 instruction needs. This naturally led to building a Multi-Tiered System of Support. I am proud to say that through our collaboration and dedication, we are beginning to see results in smiling faces confident in their foundational literacy skills, and we are closing the gap!

Lloyd S. King Elementary's response to the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read Report was filled with passion and responsibility. We have seen firsthand the effects of not learning to read and how that can impact a community. We acknowledge and honour the seven generations that came before us, and we do the work for the seven generations to come.

Near North District School Board’s Structured Literacy Journey

Stephen Krause, K-12 Student Achievement and Well-Being Principal

As a K-12 Student Achievement and Well-Being Principal, with literacy central to my portfolio, I've had the privilege of being part of the Near North District School Board’s response to the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read Report.

Since the Spring of 2020, our team has been committed to embedding a structured literacy approach into our system-wide literacy programming. When the Right to Read Report was released in February 2022, we were able to align our learning and work to date with its recommendations and use the report to bring awareness and clarity to all the stakeholders in our district regarding the system work that lay ahead.

Our journey began with providing our educators with professional learning led by our Lead Speech Pathologist, Kara Macie. This initiative aimed not only to educate but to empower educators with the tools and strategies necessary to foster literacy development effectively. This was a critical awakening for many of our educators and administrators regarding shifts in the way we understood and needed to deliver literacy instruction to our students. It also encouraged our Board to dive deeply into literacy learning and to bring expertise to our educators through connection with a network of experts in the field.

Through considerable effort, support, and collaboration, we have achieved many significant milestones in our literacy initiatives. One of our largest accomplishments was the early adoption of Acadience Reading, as a screening assessment for all our students, K-8. We are now in Year 2 of a system-wide voluntary implementation by our literacy educators. This Fall, we have collected Beginning-of-Year Benchmark data for over 80% of all our elementary students and over 90% of our K-2 students. This data allows us to quickly and accurately identify students who are struggling with their reading and helps us to make informed decisions at the student, classroom, school and system levels.

The impact of our early initiatives has been very positive. We have witnessed increased confidence and proficiency in reading and writing skills, empowering students to unlock their full potential and succeed academically. In the coming months and years, we are committed to building upon our successes and refining our strategies to meet the evolving needs of our diverse student population.

Near North’s response to the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read Report has been a journey of dedication, collaboration, and unwavering commitment to the success of every student in our district. While challenges lie ahead, and we recognize that our work is far from over, we are confident in our ability to drive meaningful change and create a future where every student has the opportunity to thrive through literacy. Together, we will continue to build a brighter tomorrow for the next generation.

Northeastern Catholic District School Board’s Screening Reveals Positive Effects of Structured Literacy Approach

Daphne Brumwell, Superintendent of Education

When the Right to Read Inquiry Report came out, we immediately took action. A committee was formed and tasked to review the recommendations, engage in learning about structured literacy and develop a plan for implementation.

All primary & junior classes shifted from a balanced literacy to a structured literacy approach that focuses on explicit instruction in phonological awareness & phonics in the fall of 2022. In the fall of 2023, we added explicit handwriting, spelling, grammar and vocabulary instruction for our junior/intermediate divisions.

Crucial to this work was the implementation of reading screening for all FDK to Gr. 8 students. A board team has been using Aimsweb+ three times a year since the fall of 2022 to identify students who are at risk. For the first time in more than a decade, we have a full set of data for every student. Though progress has been slow, we are celebrating two achievements:

In the fall of 2022, our screening data showed that 43% of our Year Two Kindergarten students were at risk. In the fall of 2023, we were delighted to see a drop in the number of our students in Year Two who were at risk to 31%. In our second year of implementation, we hope to further reduce this number.
During the 2022-2023 school year, screening data showed that 87% of our Grade 1 students were at risk in September. With changes to classroom instruction, this number had fallen to 74% by June.

These data have been instrumental in planning tiered interventions for our students. The support provided by our classroom educators, resource teachers and leads are so much more targeted and specific to student needs. We can’t wait to see the impact of our ongoing work! We are so very grateful to our dedicated team of educators who have embraced our vision and who are learning more every day about how to provide exceptional literacy learning opportunities for every NCDSB student.

Renfrew County District School Board Screening and Intervention Foster Student Growth

Jordan Sloan, Bilingual Literacy Coach, Petawawa, Deep River & Madawaska Valley

Before the release of the report on the Right to Read, the Bilingual Literacy Coaches in the Renfrew County District School Board, a small but geographically expansive board in Eastern Ontario, began learning about structured literacy. With the release of the report and the recommendations around screening, the decision was made to begin our work, to determine how we could provide structured support around the development of literacy.

Six Literacy Intervention and Support Teachers (LISTs), took on the task of screening all our students from year 2 Kindergarten through Grade 2. The screening process provided information that was used to determine how we could best support the system. The LISTs provide intervention support in six-week sessions in schools throughout the county, and the Literacy Coaches simultaneously work with teachers to implement structured literacy practices at the Tier 1 level.

This year brought about less funding, therefore only three LISTs, however, we have done so much work implementing learning around structured literacy with our teachers and bringing UFLI into our classrooms, that we are building that capacity throughout the board. We are hearing stories of success from teachers and seeing measured growth in our students. We are continuing growth with the implementation of Literacy Partners in each of our schools and look forward to expanding our training around screening, assessment, and evaluation.

Limestone District School Board’s “Grand Plan” for Literacy

Erika Chesnick, Educator

In the Fall of 2022, my boss, Associate Superintendent Stephanie Sartor, and I sat down to make a plan for where we wanted Limestone to go with literacy. We'd both read the R2R report front to back and recognized where Limestone could do better as a system in supporting our students. Our 5-year plan (since dubbed 'The Grand Plan') started to take shape, and in Year 1, there were several things we wanted to implement with passion and fidelity.

One aspect of the “Grand Plan” was building capacity with system leaders. It was early in our conversations that Stephanie and I agreed that we needed to ensure that the people steering the ship, so to speak, knew where we were going. Enter the Literacy Learning in Limestone professional development series. Throughout the school year, we held 7 sessions of learning for our elementary principals, and 4 sessions for our elementary vice-principals. These sessions included learning about structured literacy, universal screening, and school leadership related to implementation and change management.

Administrators listened to podcasts, dug into screening data, participated in various lessons (including UFLI, Word Connections, and Morpheme Magic), read chapters from Speech to Print, and read articles about a variety of literacy topics. As anyone who works in an Ontario school today can tell you - it is not easy to leave the building that you've been charged with overseeing for any period of time, but our administrators attended sessions with enthusiasm, dedication, and a collective passion and desire to do better for our students.

We have watched these leaders take this learning and use it to guide their buildings forward. From working alongside educators to collect universal screening data, to running school-wide book clubs, ensuring that morning announcements include moments for explicit vocabulary instruction, or running their own small literacy intervention groups - we see leaders across the system guiding the ship in the right direction.

Upper Canada District School Board Provides Intensive Support to Build Secondary Student Confidence and Success

The Director of Education for UCDSB has prioritized addressing the OHRC report's recommendations. He surveyed all school sites to determine the nature of reading supports and instructional materials available. From there, screening measures were administered widely across many grade levels. There was an alarmingly high number of non-readers and significant delays, especially for students in Grades 6 and up.

An action plan was designed that involved a multidisciplinary approach and a third-party partnership with LearnStyle to provide immediate intensive Tier 3 reading intervention to older students, while also working to build capacity in the board by training educators in the SRA Corrective Reading program.

In the first phase of the program, LearnStyle coaches provided daily one-on-one intervention to students via Zoom. In the second phase of implementation, UCDSB is committed to training at least one SERT in every elementary school to deliver the Corrective Reading program. In addition, high school students in locally developed English courses will receive Corrective Reading based on their screening results.

Real Results:

Student (“N”) was not a confident reader. In Grade 9, he screened into the Corrective Reading program at about a Gr 4 level. He was disengaged from school and refused to attend most classes. N agreed to try the virtual reading program with the 1:1 coach. The sessions were conducted in the Guidance office as this was the only location where he felt comfortable completing any work. On the first day, upon finishing the lesson, N ‘skipped’ down the hall to inform the principal that this program was really helpful. He felt successful. Day by day, his confidence increased. He rarely attended his other classes, but he participated fully in Corrective Reading lessons on a daily basis. When it was time for a Summative assessment in his Grade 9 English course wrote about what Reading Intervention meant to him. The following is an excerpt of his work:

"... I wanted to write about my reading program because it is important to me. I never attended classes because I felt embarrassed - (and I thought) the teachers gave me easy work or thought I was dumb. Learning reading in this program helped me see my progress every day and I began to feel more confident. I knew I was smart. There was a whole team of staff supporting me, so I found the courage to read in front of my Gr 9 English teacher. I can now read stories with many paragraphs. I know how to read and spell many words now. Learning to read makes me feel very happy. I am proud of what I can do now."
- N. Grade 9 Student, Upper Canada District School Board

Western's Faculty of Education Replaces and Expands Literacy Courseto Address the Right to Read

Perry Klein, Professor, Faculty of Education

In September 2024, the Faculty of Education at Western University will launch a revised Bachelor of Education program. To support the Right to Read, we have added a 36-hour course titled Adaptive Instruction in Literacy, which will be required for all Primary-Junior teaching candidates. The course will equip them with the knowledge and hands-on skills they need to teach students with dyslexia and other exceptionalities, as well as typically developing students. This is critically important because previous research has shown that most teacher candidates lack essential knowledge about initial literacy development and evidence-based teaching methods.

Adaptive Instruction in Literacy will replace our current 18-hour course on Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers. This year, I worked along with other instructors to update this course to address the Right to Read and the new Ontario Language curriculum. Students begin by learning about the Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model, including the key roles that phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and phonics knowledge play in early literacy. As the course progresses, students learn about complex grapheme-phoneme correspondences, morphology, discourse knowledge, and self-regulation. They use this knowledge of development to understand dyslexia and other exceptionalities that affect reading and writing, and to understand curriculum expectations, assessment, and intervention.

The new Adaptive Instruction in Literacy course will allow teacher candidates to learn more about teaching elementary students of various skill levels. We are also adding classes on explicit direct instruction; sentence writing and grammar; reading and writing in various genres; and research methods for literacy intervention.

For decades, Ontario has neglected evidence-based intervention for struggling readers. Now, the tide is turning. It is rewarding to be part of this reform.

Parent Perspective: Secondary Students Need Targeted Intervention<

Melissa Mercer, Parent, Toronto Catholic DSB

“We need to address the challenges faced by dyslexic students, particularly in high school. My son is a Grade 11 student enrolled in the academic stream at the TCDSB and has demonstrated his ability to succeed with the aid of accessibility tools, yet he encounters difficulty passing the OSSLT literacy test. Constructive feedback regarding areas of weakness and targeted guidance for improvement are essential to fostering his academic success. Currently, students, families, and educators only receive the final pass or fail score; there is no comprehensive recommendation on specific areas requiring attention for achievement. There is a pressing need for heightened school intervention to adequately prepare students with learning disabilities for the literacy assessment. Unfortunately, as students progress through high school, the absence of sufficient support mechanisms leaves families to seek external resources independently to address literacy skill deficiencies.”

Parent Grateful for Move to Structured Literacy

Lorie Mason, Parent, Renfrew County District School Board

“I am so excited and relieved that my youngest (age 6) is learning to read through a structured literacy approach, using UFLI. I know that this will set him up for success and provide him with such a deeper understanding of the English language. I watched my middle son (age 16) struggle all throughout his elementary school years. His teachers did their best, but nothing seemed to work for him or make sense to him. His struggles with literacy have not only made school hard, but also impacted his mental health. It was hard for him to see himself in a positive light when his peers seemed to be grasping and understanding reading and writing, but he was left unsure and guessing. He is in a good place now, but those skills are still a struggle for him and require him to work so hard just to come close to what his peers seem to do with ease. As challenging as that has been, I am so happy and optimistic for the changes taking place in Ontario. I truly believe that this will make an incredible difference in the lives of students, families, and our communities. Our kids deserve this change.”

Teacher Perspective on Grassroots Initiative to Adopt Structured Literacy

Kim Lockhart, Teacher, Limestone District School Board

“My school, Rideau Public, was an early adopter of structured literacy. We dove into this learning enthusiastically in 2020, knowing that our students could not wait for direction from above. Because we started before training or support was being provided by the school board, we had to do this on our own time and often with our own money. We organized book clubs, journal clubs, podcast clubs, and lunch & learns, even meeting in each other's backyards while social distancing in 2020 to keep our learning going strong!

In Spring 2022, our school scored significantly higher on the Grade 3 EQAO, with 83% of students meeting the reading expectations and 68% meeting the writing expectations.
To put this into context, board-wide Grade 3 results were 59% in Reading and 47% in Writing. Our results are particularly significant when you consider that of the 61 schools in Limestone, Rideau Public is ranked fifth from the lowest in terms of average socio-economic status. We have a lot of students who enter school at risk, yet with a Structured Literacy approach, we were able to reach more learners than even the schools with the most affluent populations in the district.”

Northern Community Teacher Perspective

Marissa Griese, Moosonee District School Area Board

"Prior to the Right to Read, experts from the south would visit us and tell us to only have student-made materials on letters displayed in the classroom. These visiting experts advocated for the use of levelled readers with three cueing strategies. We knew that this wasn't working for our kids, since we saw an inability to read and write in our early primary students. Since they were seen as experts, there was tremendous pressure to follow their direction.

The Right to Read has given us much-needed guidance and clarity. It confirmed what we could see clearly: our kids need systematic instruction and gave us much-needed permission to change our teaching approach. Over the past two years in our school, we have implemented daily phonics and phonemic awareness instruction, teaching with decodable books, teaching proper formation of letters and explicitly teaching the foundations of writing. With these changes to explicit, systematic instruction, we saw and continue to see tremendous growth in our Kindergarten to Grade 3 students."

Educator Notes Skill and Confidence Boost in Young Readers

Sarah-Isobel Moore, École Des Sentiers, Le Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario

"In my classroom, I try to cultivate a passion for reading in my students by introducing them to a wide variety of books. It's really beautiful to see how students turn into passionate readers. Since I've integrated a science-based approach to reading into my teaching, I feel much more confident, and I can see the positive impact on my students. For example, one of my students, who was very self-conscious at the beginning of the year, has overcome his decoding difficulties. By integrating orthographic mapping activities, something clicked, and he now has a better understanding of the relationship between sounds and letters. He even took the initiative of practicing at home and teaching his little brother how to do it! His self-confidence is growing, and he's blossoming not only as a reader but also as an author. It's so encouraging to see him enthusiastically sharing his favourite book passages and confidently writing down his ideas and stories."

Teacher Reflections on Implementing Science of Reading Practices

Suzanne Young, Perth Avenue Junior Public School, Toronto District School Board

“In my 27 years of teaching, never have I come across something that has so fundamentally changed my way of teaching as with the best practices presented in the Science of Reading. For the last four years, I have been using Heggerty in my Grade 1 class and am in my second year of implementing UFLI. The changes that I have seen implementing a systematic phonics program are undeniably impressive. I am so humbled to have the opportunity to help build a solid foundation for my young readers and grateful that I feel equipped to do so.”

Teacher Perspectives: Tiered Intervention Facilitates Student Success

Kathryn Hayes-Waldhuber and Amanda Tolton, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board

“As a learning resource team, we moved to implement a Multi-Tiered System of Supports, informed by screening data from Acadience. Flagging students who were at risk for potential reading failure and providing equitable access to Tier 2 and 3 interventions. Through ongoing progress monitoring, we are able to monitor the impact of our intervention to ensure students are making adequate gains with our instructional support.”

Educator Experience: Screening and Rapid Student Progress

Melissa Monette-Smith, York Region District School Board

When I screened my SK students using both Acadience and followed up with a letter-sound diagnostic, I noticed that while many of the 16 students had a decent grasp on their letter-sound relationships, they were at a loss of what to do with the letters in order to read words. Only 4 of 16 were reading at the word level. When retested three months later, after engaging in phonics and phonemic awareness routines and decodable text, 14 of 16 of the students were now reading at the word level, and 7 of 12 JKs were too!

CEPEO Teachers Note Student Progress Using Screeners and Intervention

Grade 1 Teacher

"I’m so proud of my Grade 1 readers. At the first grapheme-phoneme screening in October, my students knew on average half the names and sounds of letters. A few months later, at the second screening, most of my students knew almost all the names and sounds of letters. What a great tool that allows me to see my students’ progress. I can’t wait to start working on more complex graphemes!"

Grade 2 Teacher

A Grade 2 teacher notices a student reading during the greet and meet. He’s at his desk, reading aloud by choice. The teacher is speechless. This student normally doesn’t like reading, as he was having great difficulty. After the screening, he joined an intensive reading group. He made great progress, built up his confidence and now chooses to read for fun! At the beginning of the school year, his screening showed that he did not know 31 complex graphemes. In January, the second screening showed clear improvement. He went from missing 31 complex graphemes to 22 complex graphemes. What a great achievement!

ALF-affiliated teacher

"The screening tools and structured literacy instruction from educational consultants have helped me a lot so far. From the very first screening, we were able to identify students requiring reading assistance and set up small intensive reading groups twice a week. Since the screenings enabled us to find out what the students didn’t know, we created targeted intervention plans where we targeted graphemes to work on and worked on segmentation and fusion activities. After a 6-week block, learning is measured, and we’re delighted with the results."

Resource Teacher

"Intensive reading support in small groups provides a safe place for students to take risks. Student participation and collaboration are positive. Progress is tangible and evident in screening results. Students gain confidence in reading, mastering the code, and this boosts their self-esteem as readers."

ALF-affiliated teacher

"Two years ago, I had a third grader who couldn’t read. The impact of his struggles was evident in his behavior. Two years later, he is now in Grade 5 and is targeted for our intensive reading support blocks. In his first screening, we learn that he has 27 complex graphemes to master. During the support blocks, he does the work, gets involved in the activities and is often surprised when he learns something. The smile on his face when he learns his progress during the second screening session is worth all our efforts. He only has 16 complex graphemes to learn. This confirms the positive impact of the interventions put in place to