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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A project that has helped improve reading levels for students at Weledeh School earned two Yellowknife Catholic School recognition at the NWT Literacy Awards held at Northern United Place on Tuesday.

Rachel Gauthier, left, and Simone Gessler both won the NWT Ministerial Literacy Award in the Educator category on Tuesday for their work implementing a literacy program at Weledeh Catholic Schools. The awards were given by Gabriela Eggenhofer, deputy minister of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo

Simone Gessler, principal at Weledeh, and Rachel Gauthier, assistant principal at St. Joseph School, each received the NWT Literacy Educator Award for their work to improve and enhance literacy at Weledeh.

Gauthier, who was working as a literacy support teacher at Weledeh at the time, and Gessler started the project three years ago to answer frustrations by teachers and parents about low reading levels.

"I feel that I was accepting it on behalf of the whole staff," Gessler said. "All of our efforts together as a team made the difference in literacy levels at Weledeh."

"We weren't happy with our literacy results ... we thought we could improve," Gessler told Yellowknifer Tuesday. "It was loud and clear we were ready for some kind of intervention. Staff were frustrated with not being able to meet the needs of our students (and) with scores."

The teachers co-ordinated with staff and through research to decide how to meet the needs of their students and developed a three-tier program to help students with difficulties while enhancing the learning of students who were at or above their grade level.

Since the start of the project, 85 per cent of more than 400 students at the school reached their reading grade level and 100 per cent demonstrated improved literacy.

Gessler said the project couldn't run without the extra hands and abilities of a part-time literacy support teacher, - Gauthier at the time - who handled data, grouped the students, kept on top of assessments and provided support for the teachers.

"We wanted something different," Gessler said. "We didn't want it to be another language arts class with units - we wanted something hands on."

Gessler said the project, possibly in its final year, has become part of the school's routine. Each morning from 10:30 to 11:05 a.m., every student in the school leaves their regular classrooms to join with other students in their tier. Depending on what tier they're in, the exercises vary and always involve giving the student interactive things to do.

In tier one, students above their grade level continue to improve their reading skills through games, telling oral Dene legends and French language enhancement.

Tier two is for struggling students and involves an assessment to determine individual weaknesses in reading. From there, strategies are developed to improve on those weaknesses. The students are tested every two weeks to gauge progress.

In tier three, students who are in specialized programming, such as an individual education plan, or those with social, emotional or sensory issues, receive literacy enhancement suited to their needs.

"Kids really enjoy it. They look forward to literacy intervention block and it's not because they're doing something exciting, but because they're seeing such success and seeing where they're progressing," Gessler said.

It was also beneficial to teachers as they saw the improvements, which reaffirmed their belief in the work they were doing, Gessler said.

"It gives teachers time to work with kids they know they need to work with," said Gauthier.

Gessler said she hopes the project continues at Weledeh, but said funding could cause an issue. The school received no extra funding for the project and had to utilize outside funding in order to pay for the literacy support teacher at $70,000 per year. The added cost isn't included in the school's staffing budget since it's for an additional program.

"So far, we've been lucky enough to keep getting funding through different initiatives," she said. "Now that we have the program implemented and have results and data, we have more of a concrete proof that it's working."

In the pilot year of the program, Gessler and staff submitted a proposal to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and were granted Student Success Initiative (SSI) funding to pay the salary. In the second year, the YCS board donated $20,000 toward salary costs. The rest of the funding has come from remnants of the school's budget from previous years.

Funding hasn't been secured for next year, Gessler said, but she said that proof of the project's success should help them receive further outside funding in the future. She plans to apply for SSI funds from ECE for the 2014/2015 school year.

Now at St. Joseph School, Gauthier said she wants to continue championing literacy and is planning on working with literacy support teachers in both English and French to similarly enhance the reading level of their students. She said staff are collecting data on the students as they did at Weledeh to determine where needs aren't currently being met.

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