With the pandemic negatively affecting students’ reading skills, the province’s education sector is considering implementing “significant reading interventions” next year to push those skills back to pre-COVID-19 levels.
In a letter sent to parents in the Prairie South School Division on Jan. 15, education director Tony Baldwin explained that the division has staff members who are members of the provincial leadership group pursuing this enhanced literacy initiative. The division uses the information that those employees are passing along, while schools are also planning to implement strategies this spring to enhance reading skills.
The province has been working to enhance literacy skills for the past six years.
“We’re seeing — right across North America — that there’s been a drop in reading outcomes at the early elementary grades that we know is because of COVID somehow. We’re not sure if it’s connected to opportunities for kids or if it’s connected to lost instruction for kids,” Baldwin told the Moose Jaw Express. “My theory is it’s the latter.”
While parents have done a good job of helping students read at home, hundreds of hours of teacher-directed reading instruction were lost, he continued. That is why the education sector is hoping to engage in a one-year “blitz” to rectify the problem.
The challenge Prairie South faces in the next few months and even next year is that children are in Grade 3 only once. Research shows this is the grade children learn to read; after this grade, they read to learn. Furthermore, a predictor of graduating high school is reading proficiency by the end of Grade 3
Students in Grade 3 now lost one-quarter of their year last year when schools closed, along with dedicated reading instruction, said Baldwin. This year schools have focused more on hygiene, cleaning, sanitizing and sending kids home if necessary, so students have had a “rocky road” in developing their literacy skills.
“But next year, they’re not in Grade 3 anymore, so it’s not like we can get a do-over,” he continued. “We just need to make sure we don’t have a two- or three-year cluster of kids moving through the system without some of the skills they need to be successful. The challenge for teachers is that next year there’s going to be a whole new group of Grade 3s, and they’re going to need a bunch of help too.”
The Ministry of Education is considering a massive intervention during the 2021-22 school year for all students in grades 1 to 4 — and potentially in Grade 5 — to help them catch up in their reading skills. One school division has indicated it might put its students through a literacy boot camp in September and then jump back into the curriculum.
This is a challenge to catch up that many students, Baldwin acknowledged, but it’s an important challenge considering the learning futures of thousands of students are at risk. The ability to read can create a better life for children when they become adults.
Staff within PSSD are experts at this work, but they have many things on the go, he added. Division administration has to determine how it can clear some of that busyness off teachers’ plates so they can focus on reading for a year.
Baldwin’s letter also encouraged parents to watch for more information from their child’s school or the school community council about possible upcoming literacy initiatives.
