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Examining the Evidence

At the start of the 2025/2026 school year, we reviewed data from the previous year to guide our focus. Report card results for English Language Arts and FSA data from 2024/2025 show that while most students are on track, additional attention is needed for those who are developing or emerging in literacy.

Building on the progress made in 2024–2025 with reading comprehension strategies, we conducted a staff survey within grade groups to identify the comprehension and decoding strategies students were using.  

What reading comprehension strategies are your students using?

What decoding strategies are your students using?

Intermediate 

 

  • Predicting

  • Questioning

  • Inferencing

  • Making connections

  • Visualizing

  • Retelling

  • Recognizing titles, main ideas and supporting ideas

  • Choosing “at level” books

  • Skip ahead 

  • Sound it out

  • Using pictures

  • Reading on

  • Look for little words inside bigger words

Primary 

 

  • Visualizing and drawing ideas from a read-aloud

  • Predicting content 

  • Making connections to the story

  • Identifying and sharing favourite parts

  • Retelling key moments (especially engaging or humorous ones)

  • Using pictures to make meaning

  • Recognizing beginning and end sounds

  • Letter-sound correspondence

  • Understanding basic print concepts (how to hold a book, where to start)

  • Segmenting and blending sounds

  • Chunking words into manageable parts

  • Sounding out unfamiliar words

  • Using strategies like “smart guess” and checking if it makes sense

In the fall, all classes completed the RFRA assessment. Staff will use these results to inform and target instruction on reading comprehension strategies during the second term while reflecting on what strategies they see students use daily. 

Attachments

Fall Evidence - ELA and FSA.pdf
Updated: Tuesday, December 16, 2025