We noticed in the first few weeks of the school year through a CORE phonics assessment that many of our learners in grade 3 and 4 were not reading at grade level and could benefit from targeted instructions around long and short vowel sounds and in CVC (consonant - vowel - consonant). Our resource team, in collaboration with classroom teachers, developed a literacy centres approach toward reading instruction that would help address the needs of our students and provide them with some additional supports in their reading development.

Upon completion of the first term and after participating in literacy centres activities on a daily basis, students in Division 4 were given the same reading assessment as they were given at the start of the term. This intention of this assessment was to see if the literacy centres activities allowed our students to make improvement in reading long and short vowel sounds and CVC words. The assessment tracked the number of errors students made when reading a select passage. The results for Division 4 were as such:

• 15 of 21 students, or 71%, made improvements in their reading and made fewer errors when reading in comparison to the first assessment
• 5 of 21 students, or 23%, remained stable and made the same number of errors when reading as the first assessment
• 1 of 21 students, or 5%, demonstrated a decline in the number of errors made when reading in comparison to the first assessment

It is positive to see that the literacy centres activities allowed many of our learners to make improvements in their reading overall and over the course of just over three months. From here, we can look into how this approach may be of benefit to other groups of learners in our school who are not quite at grade level in their reading.