Grade 9 literacy looking good

Students performed well in both reading and writing in Nova Scotia's first province-wide Junior High Literacy Assessment.

Ninety-one per cent of Grade 9 students in English school boards met expectations in writing while 89 per cent met the standard in reading in the 2007 assessment.

Francophone students at Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) also did well, writing both the Junior High Literacy Assessment and the Appréciation de rendement en littératie au premier cycle du secondaire. Eighty-four per cent of CSAP students writing the French assessment met expectations in reading, compared with 77 per cent in writing. In the English assessment, 92 per cent of francophone students met expectations in both reading and writing.

Since 2004/05, the department has invested more than $8.5 million to support students who struggle with reading and writing in junior high school. Schools now provide an hour of language arts instruction for students in Grades 7 and 8 every day. Elementary students receive a minimum of 90 minutes of language arts instruction daily, including at least one hour focused on reading skills.

Active Readers, Active Young Readers and Writers in Action initiatives have also benefited students and their teachers.

Schools were provided detailed student results in early January. Parents and guardians will receive their child's individual results soon.

The 2007 English and French Junior High literacy assessments were administered to 10,661 Grade 9 students last May and were scored in July and August.

The expectations for the assessment reflect what is considered functional literacy by the end of Grade 9. It evaluated student understanding, comprehension and analysis of informational texts, visual media, literary prose, poetry and song.

The Junior High Literacy Assessment and the ARLS are the first formal follow-up evaluations of Grade 6 students who wrote Nova Scotia's inaugural Elementary Literacy Assessment in 2003.

WEBLINKS

http://jhla.ednet.ns.ca

http://arls.ednet.ns.ca.