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Loving Language in Grade 2 (The Glen, Winter 2024)
In 2023, the Ontario Government made changes and updates to the Grade 1-8 Language curriculum. These changes were developed by research surrounding the Science of Reading. Through this research, it is abundantly clear that learning to read and developing related skills such as the ability to spell, requires evidence-based, explicit instruction that encompasses areas such as letter sound knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
At Bayview Glen, explicit reading instruction has long been an essential component of our Language curriculum. This year in Grade 2, we are proud to continue the work started by the Grade 1 team’s ‘Walk to Read’ initiative, with our updated ‘Reading Mastery Transformations’ programme. ‘RMT’ is a direct instruction reading programme, meaning that it provides a structured learning process; learning strategies are broken into sub-skills which students continuously review and practice, until mastery is reached. Every day, the Grade 2 students engage in small-group reading lessons with their teacher and peers. In each small group, students work to decode individual words, read and answer comprehension questions on short stories, and discuss vocabulary and language concepts, such as contractions and homographs.
In addition to our updated reading programme, the Grade 2’s have also begun a new, evidence-based spelling programme this school year — UFLI Foundations. Rather than focussing on memorizing the spelling of a list of words, which inevitably will be forgotten days later, UFLI focusses on teaching students all of the essential letter sounds and blends that make up words in the English language. This programme follows a carefully developed scope and sequence, designed to ensure that students are able to master and practice spelling and reading skills before moving on to more challenging concepts, and allows students to apply these skills with automaticity and confidence. The growth we have seen already in Grade 2 from the use of these programmes has been wonderful. Students are much more confident in both their reading and writing, and echoes of “How do you spell…?” and “What does this say?” are a rarity. We are excited to continue to see growth not only in language abilities, but in student confidence, in Grade 2!
