Dr Willms interviews with Global News. ‘New Brunswick literacy expert calls for more training to teach children how to read’

On 18 May 2016 Dr. Willms was honored to be a keynote speaker at the Canadian Association of Principals Conference, in Saint John, New Brunswick. He presented his latest research in the development of a framework for Educational Prosperity which embeds his previous work on student engagement, wellbeing and effective teaching. The teaching looks at a life-course approach to monitoring childhood outcomes and includes explicit links to policy and practice and the measures included in the foundation for success.

Watch the interview as he talks about the importance of literacy and reading by grade 3 in an interview with Global News.

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Make literacy your bottom line

Efficient reading instruction is at the center of community transformation, and children’s future opportunities. Learn about the financial benefits of reading success, or access resources to understand the literacy needs of your community now.

How much could grade 3 reading success save you in the next

Education system costs

What do you pay annually for reading interventions and interventionists in grades 3+ ?

How much does an additional year of schooling cost per student?

How many students take an additional year or more to complete high school?

Community costs

How many students drop out of school each year?*

EFFICIENT READING INSTRUCTION ADDS UP

* 20,000$ per student - Estimate based on Canadian Council on Learning (2009). No “drop” in the bucket: the high costs of dropping out.

The OurSCHOOL survey only uses multi-question measures, as opposed to single questions as found on most other school surveys. When developing our measures, we take steps to ensure they are the most representative of the construct under investigation. We begin with the broad construct (or domain) – for example, the concept of Anxiety – then we conduct a thorough examination of the existing literature and consult with subject matter experts.

A bank of questions is then developed that are intended to reflect the construct and are rigorously tested. We know that measures are more reliable when they include a number of well-formulated questions as this allows us to more accurately differentiate between students.

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Efficient reading instruction is at the center of community transformation, and children’s future opportunities. Learn about the financial benefits of reading success, or access resources to understand the literacy needs of your community now.