Developing strong numeracy and literacy skills early on can lead to greater academic success for our students down the road. That’s why kindergarten and Grade 1 students who are struggling with math and reading get extra help through our early numeracy intervention program (ENIP) and through Reading Recovery®. Both programs operate in all of our early years schools.
Early Numeracy Intervention Program
The ENIP, designed by a team of educators in RETSD based on the work of Wright, Martland, van de Walle, Fosnot and others, involves collaboration between classroom teachers and early numeracy facilitators who have been hired and trained to work directly with the students. Initially, the teachers and facilitators work with all of the kindergarten and Grade 1 students to determine their understanding of numbers—their “number sense.” Then they move on to identify those students who are struggling and need further support. The facilitators work with those students individually, in pairs or in small groups in regularly scheduled 10 to 15-minute sessions. Together they work on counting, recognizing numbers, sequencing and other learning activities to build foundational numeracy skills that will support them in working on provincial curricular outcomes. Results consistently show significant growth in number sense among students supported by our ENIP.
Our Grade 1 students who are having difficulty learning how to read and write get the extra help they need through Reading Recovery, a program founded in 1978 by Dame Marie Clay, a professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Reading Recovery is internationally recognized as a successful research validated intervention strategy for young readers. It involves daily 30-minute individual lessons with specially-trained Reading Recovery teachers, conducted outside of the classroom for 12 to 20 weeks. The lessons are tailored to each student’s unique needs, drawing from their own experiences and knowledge to develop strategies that will help them become better readers and writers. Annual tracking results show a high percentage of our Reading Recovery students are able to work within the average range of achievement in reading and writing.