Education and Literacy

Preparing students for the transition from Grade 8 to Grade 9 is one that educators need to focus in on and take extremely seriously. As I teach a Grade 9 course, I have often found that students are not only misplaced in the stream they have chosen for the course, but are lacking the basic literacy skills that will carry them in all subjects. I am part of a York Catholic School Board committee called “Project Lighthouse”. This committee has been specifically designed including teachers at the Intermediate and Senior levels to discuss the very issue of transition. This was spearheaded by teachers at the Secondary level who were finding that students were beginning Secondary School lacking some of the basic literacy skills needed.
The research questions I tackled were: What specific skills do students need to be successful in Secondary School? How will a student’s level of literacy skills help or hinder in courses that are in other subject areas other than English?
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