Kindergarten to Grade 3 students in Grand Forks will be part of a new Ministry of Education initiative program to support early readers called Changing Results for Young Readers.
Hutton Elementary School Principal Doug Lacey noted that the program will look at reading practices and various strategies to promote literacy.
“Three of us went down to Richmond in late August to find out what this new initiative is about,” Lacey explained. “Basically, the province has put together teams of educators being guided by early literacy and early educator experts in British Columbia to lead a literacy and inquiry based change processes in all 60 districts.”
There are 25 facilitators assigned to different districts and will work with local early-reading advocates.
In School District 51 (SD51), Tammy Jacobs and Marilyn Strukoff will be joined by up to 10 other teachers to work with the district facilitator on this initiative. The facilitator for SD51 will be Terry Taylor, who is also an administrator at Arrow Lakes.
In his presentation, Lacey said that the district team would meet seven times over the course of the year.
This program is also funded by the ministry.
“We will be considering early reading practices, many of which we got to see through different presenters at the conference, leaving us with various skills, strategies and techniques that we may want to look at for supporting engaging young readers,” added Lacey. “They’re really looking for focuses on social and emotional learning, self-regulation and development to help and support in developing literacy in young students.”
Lacey noted that this program is more of a qualitative analysis, rather than a quantitative study, which will involve more reflection and discussions about what is happening to children in the classrooms.
“This will be done through storytelling, which is similar to the model of Aboriginal learning,” he said. “It’s kind of neat because when these teacher’s come, they’re going to be thinking of one child in their classroom that is really struggling in reading. As a team, we’ll hone a way or strategy for the teacher to take back and use to support that child.”
The idea behind this concept, Lacey noted, was that once that child improves, it would have a positive effect for all the children in the classroom.
“It sounds very good,” said trustee Ken Harshenin. “We’re looking forward to see what happens.”
The first district team meeting is slated for Oct. 22.
