Holy Trinity Catholic School Division celebrated students who successfully completed the literacy intervention program this year by throwing a party that made youths and parents glow with pride.
Mark Selinger, supervisor of learning and technology, provided a reading celebration report during the recent June board meeting highlighting how 13 students in the literacy intervention program (LIP) increased reading levels during the 2021-22 school year.
Meanwhile, in August, he will provide a comprehensive report with the division’s overall reading scores from this year.
Normally the division would hold a barbecue to celebrate students who complete the program, but the pandemic made that difficult during the past two years, Selinger said.
Last year, staff collected stories from students about those successes and shared them with parents and division administration. That approach worked so well that staff did the same thing this year.
“So Stacey (Moser, curriculum support worker) went to all of the (six elementary) schools and met with the classrooms and they did glow parties. They said growing and glowing is what they did … ,” he continued. “So they were all able to celebrate, which was exciting to see.”
Selinger then showed trustees a webpage that featured stories of 13 children — wearing glow bracelets and glasses — from this year’s program and videos of each student reading to Moser. The students’ parents were also encouraged to provide comments on their child’s literacy growth.
One mother talked about how her daughter had many reasons to “glow with pride” since she grew eight literacy levels this year and felt immense appreciation with her progress. The mother explained that her daughter was hesitant to read since she felt she was behind her peers.
“Her ability and skills have blossomed, but most importantly, her courage has been bolstered. She has become confident, brave and proud,” the mother continued. “(Her daughter) feels empowered as she gets out library books and reads to her brother.”
The mom added that the girl was making slow progress learning big concepts in her full classroom, but with the small student-to-teacher ratio in the literacy program, she couldn’t evade the lessons or practice.
The parents of a young boy said he had many reasons to celebrate since he had grown 10 reading levels this school year. His frustrations with reading faded as his confidence grew, while he soaked up information “like a sponge” and loved sharing what he had learned — especially the statistics about pro athletes.
“We appreciated that there was a teacher available to spend time helping (our son) get to the level of reading he needed to be at and that he had another person supporting him as he grew into a confident — not frustrated — reader who can read confidently in two languages,” the parents added.
After showing trustees a few more testimonies, Selinger said, “It’s great to hear some of that parent feedback … (that) we love to get from that barbecue that we would typically do, so it’s great. It’s just great to celebrate the great growth that happened … this year.”
The next Holy Trinity board meeting is in September.
