The Instructional Hierarchy

The Instructional Hierarchy is a model of skill acquisition. The hierarchy has been researched for decades – when we learn something new, we move through a series of predictable stages. Educators need to be aware of the instructional hierarchy since we are most effective when our instruction matches the student’s current level of proficiency. Learn…

Family Literacy Night Slides

This slide deck outlines some of the key changes to literacy instruction in Ontario, the purpose of early reading screening, and things parents and caregivers can do at home to support strong reading outcomes. The Google slide deck is set to “view only” – to edit it, make a copy to your own drive.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Young Children: Driving Change in Early Education

This evidence-based planning guide will help educators of young children (K/1) and those who lead them to use the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support framework to enhance student development and success in literacy, language and the social-emotional domain. Chapter topics include using data-based decision making, engaging families, dual-lanuage learners, children with disabilities, and specific chapters on…

Celebrating a Fantastic First Year with ONlit: Thank You, Ontario Educators!

Celebrating a Fantastic First Year with ONlit: Thank You, Ontario Educators!

As we wrap up our first year with ONlit, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to the incredible community of Ontario educators who have made this journey so enriching and impactful. Throughout the year, we’ve seen an amazing network of educators come together, sharing insights and resources, supporting each other, and collectively enhancing literacy…

A teacher and a child smiling at each other over a book

Unlocking Student Potential: A Diagnostic Decision Tree for Screening Data

In structured literacy, data-based decision-making is paramount to ensuring all children meet their right to learn to read. As Ontario moves toward province-wide early reading screening in September, it is important to consider how to use screening data to inform instruction. We screen to improve instruction and outcomes for students, first and foremost! Each of…

How Learning Happens: Seminal Works in Educational Psychology and What They Mean in Practice

How Learning Happens is broken down into 28 short chapters, each one focusing on an important element of educational research. The format of each chapter with consistent sections (Why you should read this article, Abstract of the article, The article, Conclusions/implications of the work for educational practice, and How to use this work in your…

Acadience Reading K-2 Data Sheets

This Google Sheets document is designed to support K-2 educators in analyzing their Acadience reading data. It features a dedicated sheet for each grade level at each time window, allowing educators to input raw scores. The document automatically compares raw scores to benchmark scores, colour codes data, and calculates composite scores efficiently. This allows for…