Looking Back on 2022 (And Ahead to the 2022/23 School Year)
Summer is coming to an end and I love taking time to reflect on all the fun things that came to be in the last year.
Study Group for SLPs, Teachers, & Local Educators
Study group wrapped up in June and Lyndsay Bourdeau from @myspeechlanguageliteracy and I were so grateful for the SLPs and Teachers who attended the online monthly meetings throughout the school year.
We began the spring series by reviewing the Right to Read Report published in February 2022 by the Ontario Human Rights Commision (OHRC).
From the commission:
“The Right to Read inquiry report highlights how learning to read is not a privilege but a basic and essential human right. The report includes 157 recommendations to the Ministry of Education, school boards and faculties of education on how to address systemic issues that affect the right to learn to read. The report combines research, human rights expertise and lived experience of students, parents and educators to provide recommendations on curriculum and instruction, early screening, reading interventions, accommodation, professional assessments and systemic issues. Implementing the OHRC’s recommendations will ensure more equitable opportunities and outcomes for students in Ontario’s public education system”.
We discussed what this report means for Alberta Educators, going forward. For those who are interested in knowing about the OHRC’s report, it can be found here. Discussion focused on how to implement the many recommendations and ideas for moving forward to support all students.
The next topic we explored in Study Group included the topic of “inferencing” and how this higher-level language skill is important for reading comprehension.
We discussed how this skill can be taught through explicit instruction. Dr. Lesly Wade-Woolley shared the following open access paper: Inference Instruction to Support Reading Comprehension for Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities (2017) by Colby Hall and Marcia A. Barnes.
The group started to think about applying the idea of explicit inference instruction to upper elementary classrooms (and beyond to junior and senior high) and using this as a whole class strategy to help improve understanding of curriculum-based text.
Our last Study Group Session focused on collaborative teaching models and looking at the evidence supporting this model.
The paper assigned was: Applying Co-Teaching Models to Enhance Partnerships Between Teachers and Speech-Language Pathologists (2022) by Kathleen Zimmerman, Jason C. Chow, Caitlyn Majeika and Reed Senter. This quickly became a hot topic as we discussed alternative service delivery models to support students in our schools. We discussed the idea of a “high incidence” student support system to look at whole class and targeted supports for students at risk of or identified with language and reading difficulties. System-wide barriers were discussed at length. Some of the barriers identified included level of knowledge and understanding of district and school level administration about language and its relation to academic and reading success, funding sources, and where funding for student supports is allocated, within districts.
The Language & Reading Study Group
Check out our Group on Facebook if you are interested in checking out previous topics and posts.
The 2022-23 School Year
This fall brings about many changes for me. One of the changes is that I will be stepping back (very slightly) from clinical work. I am looking forward to teaching at the University of Alberta in the Faculty of Education in both fall and winter terms this school year. Classes I will be teaching include Language Development in the fall term and Assessment & Identification of Reading Difficulties in the winter term. I am full of gratitude and appreciation for those who continue to move new and fresh ideas forward to improve supports for students in our schools.
As an end note, there are some very exciting learning opportunities coming this fall, so for those of you who are interested in language development and its relationship to reading success, please stay tuned for some big announcements!
Happy New School Year, and wishing you the very best!
