Trinity’s Professional Development (PD) day on March 12th allowed teachers to meet together at the school to further deepen their understanding of literacy instruction and assessment.
Sue Jackson, a national literacy consultant for Scholastic Canada, spoke to teachers about the components of a literacy program and the continuum of literacy learning in each division. Sue shared strategies to best teach literacy using a comprehensive Canadian literacy resource: Literacy Place for K-3, Moving Up with Literacy Place for Grades 4-6 and Stepping Up with Literacy Place for Grade 7-8. We are blessed to have many of these resources for use in our Primary and Intermediate Grades and hope to purchase materials for the rest of our classes in the near future.
Marg Craig, a Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) trainer, helped refresh for some, and introduce for new teachers, the importance of reading assessment and how these results drive instruction and next steps for teaching reading to students. We recognize the importance of meaningful assessment to improve student learning and the DRA is one component of assessment which helps teachers to meet the individual needs of their students.
The Literacy program at Trinity provides our students with an opportunity to experience God’s awesome creation as experienced through the words we listen to, read, write and speak. One of the greatest blessings of teaching is the ability to help our students experience success with their learning and celebrate the unique learner God created them to be.
More information about Literacy Place, Moving Up and Stepping Up with Literacy Place can be found at:
https://education.scholastic.ca/category/COMPREHENSIVE_LITERACY
More information about the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) can be found at:
https://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/book-selection-tips/assess-dra-reading-levels

Christy Romkema Mack, Vice-Principal of Learning