The North East School Division is reporting that students are improving in reading, writing and arithmetic.
“We’ve seen significant improvement over the last couple of years that we started tracking these indicators and we’re starting to see the growth be sustained and continued,” said Don Rempel, the division’s director of education. “So, we’re very pleased with the results and we’re seeing students’ progress at a year’s worth of learning over a year’s worth of time.”
Using the reading district assessment tool, 32 per cent of Grade 1s were reading at grade level for the initial test in 2013. When they got to Grade 2 in 2014, 65 per cent were reading at grade level. In Grade 3 the next year, 61 per cent were at grade level. In Grade 4 in 2016, 23 per cent were at grade level.
A decrease is expected at Grade 4 as students switch from just reading a passage to answering questions that measure their comprehension. In 2013, 29 per cent of Grade 4s were at grade level. In Grade 5 in 2014, 11 per cent were at grade level. In Grade 6 in 2015, it was 33 per cent. In Grade 7 in 2016, it was 37 per cent.
The trend in the data shows an increasing amount of students reading at grade level until Grade 4, a decrease in Grade 5 and then an increase from that point on.
Rempel said this data allows the division to focus resources on children who are having difficulty reading at grade level.
