FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2002

Board’s goal is to improve student literacy
 Results of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) literacy test for Grade 3 and 6 students have convinced the Ministry of Education and the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board that a major investment is needed to assist teachers in improving literacy in these grades. The future success of our students requires that they be proficient in being able to read and understand what they read if they are to succeed in school and in life.

Why we are assessing students
The Ministry of Education requires all school boards to work towards improving the reading achievement of their students in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3, and three-year improvement targets had to be submitted to the Ministry. As well, the Ministry of Education also requires all boards to acquire a single, early reading assessment.

Part of the assessment is the development of an understanding of students’ ability to read, evaluating their skill level, then designing a program to effectively help them progress and succeed in literacy.

The Developmental Reading Assessment is an important diagnostic tool that enables teachers to identify specific instructional areas in reading where students need help. It helps teachers communicate students’ reading levels to parents, and effectively determine how teachers and parents can co-operatively work together to improve the students’ performance.

Developmental Reading Assessment

  1. The Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board selected the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) following a consultation process including teachers and pilot testing in five schools.
  2. DRA is a diagnostic tool to determine reading skill level, the grade level at which those skills are exhibited, and overall comprehension.
  3. DRA provides a consistent reading assessment across the Board.
  4. Children enter school with highly diverse environmental, social and linguistic experiences and varying ranges of preschool learning opportunities.
  5. Many children show evidence of learning difficulties that place them significantly behind their peers in key areas of readiness for the acquisition of literacy skills.
  6. Letter knowledge and phonemic awareness are the most significant predictors of success in learning to read.
  7. Research indicates that 90 to 95% of all children can learn to read at grade level with proper intervention.
  8. The chance of successfully improving reading difficulties is dramatically increased if intervention efforts begin as early as possible in the primary grades.

What assistance is the Board receiving?
The Ministry of Education introduced the Early Reading Strategy during the 2001/2002 school year. One component of this initiative was to provide Early Reading learning resources in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms. Our Board received funds of $121,510 for this initiative. Depending on the number of students in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3, our schools received between $1,177 and $6,399 for a variety of books and other reading materials. The Board also received an allocation of $93,780 to use in capacity building activities. These activities include: gathering, analyzing and interpreting Grade 3 EQAO assessment results, setting improvement targets and planning for improvement results, acquiring a single reading assessment instrument, training in the selected early reading assessment instrument's application and the interpretation of results, training on selected instructional strategies, and training on appropriate intervention strategies and applying them effectively in the classroom.

“School principals are using a variety of strategies to provide in-class time for teachers to apply the new assessment tool. Many principals are providing release time through the use of occasional teachers, and classes such as gym are being combined to free up one teacher to do individual student assessments,” says Judy Edgar, Chair of the Board. She adds that in other situations, principals or vice-principals are covering a class in the morning or afternoon while the teacher does assessments.

The Board continues to feel that a settlement is possible and is prepared to return to the table at the call of the Ministry of Labour mediator Bruce Janisse.


For information contact :
• Judy Edgar, Chair of the Board (613) 332-1480
• Chris Salt, Superintendent of Human Resources/Operations, 966-1170 x2281
• Kerry Donnell, Communications Officer, 966-1170 x2354