Manitoba MLAs are slated to debate whether elementary school teachers should be mandated to use a standardized tool to screen children for learning disabilities on a regular basis.
The Manitoba Liberals co-drafted legislation with educators that would introduce universal monitoring to better detect early signs of struggle with reading and writing and help more students become fully literate.
“Manitoba’s 37 divisions do not have a clear or consistent direction with respect to screening assessments for reading,” party leader Cindy Lamoureux, the lone Liberal MLA, told the legislative assembly as she introduced the private member’s bill.
The Public Schools Amendment Act (Universal Screening for Learning Disabilities) would require kindergarten-to-Grade 3 students to undergo screening twice per year.
The education minister would establish the appropriate assessment tools, per the proposal.
Lamoureux said Bill 225 recognizes every student’s “right to read” and aims to bolster the province’s literacy rate.
It would also require parents and guardians to be alerted about their child’s results and findings to be used to “guide decisions concerning any further assessments and the allocation of specialized resources.”
Manitoba’s latest Grade 3 assessments show 45 per cent of children met grade-level expectations for reading in 2023. Among northern students, that figure was only 19 per cent.
The proposed changes to screening would align Manitoba with other jurisdictions, including Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, added Lamoureux, who represents the Tyndall Park constituency.
Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division has rolled out early literacy screening for kindergarten and Grade 1 students in St. Vital and surrounding communities. Teachers use the second edition of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing.
Evergreen School Division recently introduced the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills screener in Gimli-area schools.
Teachers and dyslexia advocates made the case for mandating standardized check-ins with all children at an early age at Manitoba’s inaugural Universal Screening Symposium in October.
The Liberals hosted a forum later in the fall about the challenges, such as late diagnoses, faced by students and adults with learning disabilities.
