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DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
Kate Powell does not really work with students at Deninu School in Fort Resolution, but her efforts are very important for their success.

Kate Powell is the literacy coach at Deninu School in Fort Resolution. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

That's because Powell is in her fourth year as the school's literacy coach.

"I'm not classroom-based, so I work with the teachers rather than working directly with the students," she said, adding she and the teachers work on planning and curriculum with the goal of improving instruction throughout the school.

She works with seven classroom-based teachers, plus a language and culture teacher.

Powell, who has been a teacher for 17 years, is one of the literacy coaches in each of the schools under the South Slave Divisional Education Council (SSDEC).

"The district has got certain goals that they want to achieve," she said. "One of them is that they want 80 per cent of the students reading at grade level."

Powell said having a literacy coach has made a big difference for the students at Deninu School, judging from the various methods of testing the students' literacy skills and comparing it to Canadian norms.

She noted there is room for improvement because there are always one or two students who need extra help.

"But what's nice is that now we don't have entire groups of students needing that," she said. "We managed to get so many students caught up to where they're meant to be that we only have some students who are working below level. And that means we can concentrate our efforts on those students."

Along with a literacy coach in each school, the SSDEC has two literacy co-ordinators for the South Slave region.

"I will go on courses with them and learn more about the latest research, new strategies and ideas for in the classroom, and my role is to take it back into the school by doing job-embedded professional development with the staff," Powell said.

Deninu School and the other schools in the South Slave have had literacy coaches for six years.

Powell said a literacy coach is particularly useful for teachers new to a school or the district, giving the instructor a way get up to speed on literacy strategies.

"It ensures more consistency throughout the school," she noted. "So whatever they're doing in kindergarten and Grade 1 will be built upon in Grade 2 and 3, because the planning team is there to help that continue."

Powell defines literacy as having the skills to access and present information.

"Literacy is all about communication, receiving and presenting," she said.

She noted literacy is important in many ways, including for employment and in determining whether a student will go on to further education.

In September, Powell and Lucinda Summers, the program support teacher at Deninu School, shared the Ministerial Literacy Award for educators.

Powell said they were nominated based on their integrated planning involving kindergarten to Grade 9.

"The idea is we take the whole curriculum and we put it into themes," she said, explaining that means students are not learning things in isolation.

For example, if Grade 9 students learn about fresh and salt water systems in science, that would be combined with how water was used for agriculture by ancient civilizations.

"So they're making the connections and, at the same time, we integrate the literacy so they're reading about those things," Powell said.

The 39-year-old, who is originally from England, said she finds her role as a literacy coach challenging and satisfying.

"I was in the classroom before, so it's kind of a different perspective on things," she said. "I think that what I really like about it is seeing it as a whole. When you're in your classroom, you see that one class. But in this role, I kind of get to see the big picture."

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