The Prince Albert Catholic School Division has become the first school division in the province to use a reading intervention program that originated with Toronto Sick Kids Hospital
Superintendent Charity Dmytruk outlined the Empower Reading program for trustees during the board of education’s regular meeting on Monday at St. John Community School.
“It is data-driven, it is research-based, and it really is in line with structured literacy, which is what we are moving towards as a province, because we know that we need to respond to the Human Rights Commission, Equitable Education for Students with Reading Disabilities that came out in 2023,” Dmytruk said.
“The province has a plan to respond to that, and then as a division, we needed a plan to respond to that,” she added.
Dmytruk said Empower Reading is a Tier 3 reading intervention developed by Toronto Sick Kids Hospital that has been worked on for 30 years.
The division uses Heggerty resources for Pre-K to Grade 3 for Tier 1. They also have responses for Tier 2 reading interventions in the division.
Dmytruk described Tier 1 instruction as regular universal instruction. Tier 2 students, which make up about 15 per cent of learners, “need a little bit more targeted support,” she explained.
Tier 3 students are about 5 per cent of all students. Dmytruk said they need more intensive support.
Empower is designed for students who are in Grade 2 to Grade 5 who are reading below grade-level expectations.
“We knew we needed a response for those Tier 3 students who really need that extra intervention in order to learn to read, so that’s where we brought in Empower,” Dmytruk said.
Dmytruk explained that Empower focuses on early intervention and uses a structured literacy approach.
“It has seen fantastic results throughout eight provinces across Canada,” she said. “It started in Ontario. We are the first division in Saskatchewan to bring it to our students.”
Empower uses five main strategies including sounding out strategy and rhyming strategy among others.
Dmytruk said they discovered Empower through working with the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board from Ontario.
She explained that the division looked at different screeners for readers that the province was considering.
“One of the companies that produces these screeners said ‘we work with Hamilton-Wentworth and they have the highest reading rates in Ontario.’ When you look at the number of students that are in Ontario, if the Hamilton Wentworth has the highest reading rates they are doing something right,” Dmytruk explained.
“We worked with them and we actually got to see Empower in action out in Ontario. Then they helped connect us to Toronto and bring it to us. It is meant for struggling readers. It teaches decoding and spelling and it also teaches comprehension skills.”
She said that Empower touches on all the important aspects of reading for students in Grade 2 to Grade 5.
“You need to have training directly from Empower—from Toronto Sick Kids—in order to deliver the program,” Dmytruk explained. “We have 10 teachers that have been trained by Toronto Sick Kids across our division, and they continue to be mentored by Toronto Sick Kids throughout.”
As long as the teachers are teaching Empower strategies, they will get mentorship through Toronto Sick Kids Hospital.
“They go through 110 lessons throughout the school year, but as they make improvements and changes, through that mentorship, that’s how they communicate it to our staff,” Dmytruk said.
To implement the program, teachers using Empower received four days of Professional Development before the school year. Those teachers also receive half day refreshers annually.
Dmytruk said the program helps build students’ confidence level to get them more comfortable reading books.
“It gives them the skills so that they can see themselves as readers,” she explained. “Once they see themselves as readers, they feel capable and excited about reading, and they just continue to grow.”
Dmytruk’s presentation on Monday was about a half hour but there were several questions from trustees.
However, the growth in the readers in Ontario excited the division.
According to a chart provided in the presentation, Hamilton-Wentworth students’ reading skills improved to average after the introduction of the intervention. The program is still being completed in the division so results from Prince Albert Catholic are not available.
“We don’t have our growth yet, right? Because the students are only halfway through the program, but we have done some moment in time (assessments). We assess all the students all the way through … and the growth that we’re seeing so far is so promising. It makes us so excited,” Dmytruk said.
The Hamilton-Wentworth students showed growth during and after the Empower program.
“They have those building blocks so they can continue to grow. That’s really what made us excited, that … the growth happened even after the intervention,” Dmytruk said.
Director of education Lorel Trumier was happy the program was the first of its kind in Saskatchewan.
“We’re really pioneering it for our jurisdiction. We are very happy about the endeavour and looking forward to seeing the results,” Trumier said.
Trumier added that the division is working behind the scenes to make sure they have the best reading program and delivery process for students.
“Whether it’s in the screening process, the instructional process, or any provincial assessment that’s going to occur, Empower is part of that,” Trumier said. “It’s a response to students who may have difficulty learning to read and with 30 years behind them in the Empower program from Toronto Sick Kids, then it certainly is an endeavour with demonstrated results that we wanted to capitalize on and learn from.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
