Low literacy rates in Canada prompt reading curriculum changes

The Current22:11Rethinking how we teach kids to read

It's back to school season, and several provinces across Canada are changing the way they're teaching their children how to read with a renewed focus on phonics. 

School boards in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Alberta and New Brunswick are implementing a "structured literacy" approach to improve how reading is taught. 

"We know that those foundational word-reading and spelling skills, oral language, understanding and communication [are] really foundational to everything a child is going to do throughout the years," Jamie Metsala, a professor of education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, told The Current's host Matt Galloway. 

"If we fail early on, that really has a devastating impact, not only on the academic trajectory of students, but also on social emotional well-being," said Metsala, who is also the Gail and Stephen Jarislowsky Chair in Learning Disabilities. 

According to Metsala, when students aren't able to meet the desired reading level, it can cause a chain of consequences — school avoidance, self-esteem issues and depression. 

Metsala was an advisor on the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read report, which was published in 2022. The report revealed that Ontario's public education system was failing students by not using evidence-based approaches in teaching reading. 

In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, recent reading assessment results showed low literacy rates among elementary school students. 

Metsala says that "the job of the school [is] to teach all students to be able to read in the best way that we know how." 

WATCH | Speakers address the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read Inquiry :

Parents and students describe issues with reading education to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read Inquiry

3 years ago

Duration 4:15

Speakers address the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read Inquiry in London, Ont., on Jan. 29, 2020. The Commission was looking into whether Ontario’s Elementary school curriculum is adequately serving all children, and it filed its report and recommendations on Feb. 28, 2022.

What is the new curriculum? 

The new reading curriculum involves phonics and is more structured. 

It is a move away from the current "balanced literacy" approach, which integrates "cueing systems" for students to learn to read by guessing and "[predicting] what words are going to be," said Metsala. 

Introduced in the 1990s, the balanced literacy method was based on what Metsala calls a "very romantic notion of what reading is — immerse children in wonderful books and they will learn to read."

She said there are complex reasons, including the emphasis on literature and teacher autonomy, that made the movement appealing.

However, balanced literacy has had persistent issues — many students do not learn to read this way, and fixes to align it with evidence-based understandings of "how children learn to read, and how best to teach them" weren't made, she said.

In contrast, the revamped curriculum uses an approach called "structured literacy." Metsala says it focuses on "teaching the code of written language." 

Students learn phonics and phonemic awareness, mastering "the most common letter-sound correspondences and how to sound out words to read or decode the written words, as well as how to spell words." 

Additionally, Metsala said structured literacy has other components including "children's vocabulary knowledge, world knowledge, genre knowledge, skills with grammar, reading and writing fluency [and] cognitive strategies for comprehending and writing text." 

Rebecca Halliday runs Riverbend Community School, a private school in Riverview, N.B., and she switched to using the structured literacy approach six years ago. 

She said the combination of its components mean students don't just memorize words, but instead are equipped with the "word attack skills" to know how to read words as they get harder. 

Implementation of curriculum 

Ontario's revamped literacy curriculum was brought in last year for students in Grades 1 and up, and will also include kindergarten starting in September 2025. 

Alex Merrick, a mother of three children in Ontario, has experience with the new curriculum. 

While she says her children's school "is doing what they can with the resources they have," she sees room for more improvement. 

"It's been really frustrating, in particular trying to advocate and get support for my eldest with her learning disabilities," said Merrick. "I think the problem is there is a huge need in schools right now in terms of supporting students." 

While the new curriculum is needed and necessary, she said, "the roll out in terms of funding and appropriate training for teachers did not come with it."  

In a statement to CBC, the Ontario Ministry of Education said, in part, that it's "committed to providing teacher supports to ensure the successful implementation [and have] partnered with experts to provide teachers and principals with resources." 

In New Brunswick, Rebecca Halliday, who describes herself as a strong proponent of structured literacy, said she sees this as "a social justice issue."

"Not reading is not just about reading. It's about the whole child, and what that does to them as a person," she said. 

"We need to fight for these kids to learn to read."