Manitoba review finds widespread dissatisfaction with reading instruction

Manitoba’s early “Right to Read” findings suggest a majority of teachers do not think schools are generally using effective methods to teach students to read.

The Manitoba Human Rights Commission hosted a long-awaited public townhall in downtown Winnipeg on Wednesday as part of its deep-dive into issues affecting students with reading disabilities.

Executive director Karen Sharma spoke at length about what her team has heard to date about instructional approaches, screening tools to identify struggling readers, and interventions — or the lack thereof.

“We commonly heard that… the approach currently used in Manitoba schools is not effective in teaching students to read,” Sharma told a crowd of approximately 75 at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Her team conducted comprehensive online surveys in the spring of 2023. The release of those results, as well as ongoing public and stakeholder consultations, have repeatedly been delayed.

The commission has cited a busier-than-usual litigation workload since it announced the project during Dyslexia Awareness Month in October 2022. At the time, it planned to draft recommendations for the provincial government by the end of 2023.

Sharma said Wednesday the project is now a top priority and she and her co-lead, Megan Fultz, plan to finalize a report later this year.

A total of 93 students, 315 parents, guardians and other family members, and 283 teachers and school administrators have participated in different polls tailored to their specific identity.

Seven in 10 school employees indicated either “whole language” or “balanced literacy” philosophies, often grouped together due to their overlapping ideas about the importance of using context clues to guess unknown words, is used most often to teach reading locally.

(Reading Recovery, a popular program in Manitoba that introduces struggling readers to levelled books that are grouped by complexity and become increasingly more difficult as students progress through them, falls into this group.)

Nine per cent said “structured literacy” — explicit, cumulative and systematic instruction about the relationship between sounds and letters — was the most common approach.

The remaining either did not know or cited “other.”

Asked about their thoughts on the status quo’s results, about 60 per cent of teachers and administrators indicated it is not working.

Parents were asked the same two questions in their survey. Their answers mirrored educators’ ones, with more than half of participants frustrated by existing practises.

The findings echo Ontario’s groundbreaking 2019 Right to Read report that concluded its schools were not using evidence-based approaches that incorporated phonics into reading instruction.

Manitoba’s project is a spinoff of Ontario’s inquiry.

Holly Cebrij and her 11-year-old drove to Winnipeg from Portage la Prairie on Wednesday to weigh in.

“I don’t like school one bit,” said Alyssa, who attends a public elementary school located about 85 kilometres east of Winnipeg.

Cebrij said she’s accepted that her youngest daughter will always have a complex relationship with school and require extra support, owing to her late diagnosis of dyslexia.

Following years of unsuccessful requests for a school-based assessment to find out why Alyssa was struggling so much more than her older sister and peers in kindergarten through Grade 4, the family paid for a $3,000 private assessment. They recently got their answers: dyslexia and ADHD.

“She missed the prime years of instruction. She’s in Grade 6 now. How do you catch up?” Cebrij said, adding she has taught herself — a non-teacher — how to teach basic letter-sound associations and pronunciations to help her youngest learn to read outside school hours.

The duo was presented with data and numerous anecdotes during the townhall that indicated their experience is far from unique.

Many participants shared their frustration about schools being unresponsive to their children’s needs and the related fallout on their children’s mental health and confidence.

Some described the hefty price tag associated with finding help externally, be it via tutoring, psychologists, private schools or otherwise.

Meantime, teacher-attendees described limited formal training and support to better help struggling students.

The commission’s two final public consultations on reading education are scheduled for June 10 (online) and June 12 in Thompson.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca