Repurposing Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI) - Content Library

Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI) is a commonly used literacy intervention grounded in the ineffective three-cueing approach to reading instruction. In 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission found that LLI is ineffective, both from external research on its effectiveness and boards’ own data on student outcomes. The Commission recommended moving away from programs like LLI and toward evidence-based structured literacy interventions.

Developed by Catherine Shawana of the ONlit team, this spreadsheet categorizes texts from the LLI program so they can be used for a different purpose. Each text was carefully analysed to find links to Ontario curriculum expectations and content areas. Educators can use this document to build conceptually coherent text sets, thoughtfully assembling a set of texts either to read aloud or for students to read. Text sets allow for purposeful instruction to build content knowledge and vocabulary.