The provincial government contributed $3 million to see a Saint John program focused on improving literacy among students at seven inner-city schools continue for another two years.
“When Children Succeed” places a focus on reading and phonetics with additional staff brought in to work with about 700 students.
Data from the program is monitored closely to see where the program is working and what improvements are needed.
The program is supported by the Anglophone South school district and the Business Community Anti-Poverty Initiative.
Roxanne Fairweather of BCAPI said interventions are “transformational” adding when these kids enter kindergarten they are already behind their peers and without attention, they fall further behind.
“By the time their peers are in Grade 3 hitting Grade 2 reading levels, they are falling farther and farther behind which means at that point in Grade 3, they are supposed to be reading to learn and they can’t do it,” Fairweather said.
Fairweather said BCAPI were looking at the roots of poverty and what are the impacts of early childhood trauma.
They found children who couldn’t read well weren’t finishing high school, going on to post-secondary or contributing to the workforce.
“An educated workforce determines the economy. It’s the engine of the economy. So, we decided that this was a very important focus,” Fairweather said.
The “When Children Succeed” program began during the 2018 school year with 21 teachers added to the program by BCAPI, Living Saint John, Anglophone South and the Department of Education.
Zoe Watson, superintendent of Anglophone South, said the school district has been the lead on data collection and the management of data.
“There would be quite a team of us at the district level that have been involved with the principals of the seven schools. We meet often and talk about our successes and our challenges,” Watson said.
She said this year they’ve had a reset of the project.
“I would say to you that we learned in 2018 from the time of the [school closures] in March 2020, we had to tighten up our data collection measures. We have a staff person from our office who has been working closely with the schools collecting data every couple of months,” Watson said.
A co-teacher at each school collaborates with the K to 2 teaching team.
“They have daily huddles. They meet often to discuss the progress of the students and use the data that has been collected to plan the next steps for individual students,” Watson said.
Watson said the program is “very collaborative and very personalized”.
Cardy speaks on the importance of literacy. He says this program will change lives. pic.twitter.com/tyv1bn8BqJ
— Tamara Steele (@tamarasteele1) June 20, 2022
