McKay Elementary School

School Learning Story Focus 2025/26

School Learning Focus for the 25/26 school yearAt McKay Elementary, our focus is on enhancing literacy proficiency for all learners, with disaggregated improvement for beginning English language learners and students with diverse abilities. We will strengthen reading comprehension and academic language skills through Language Arts instruction centered around “story” and the use of “story”.
Evidence-Informed Rationale (WHY)

 Our school story focus is informed by the Fall Richmond Formative Reading Assessment (RFRA). The data indicates that the key areas of focus in reading comprehension are: student fluency, decoding, connecting, questioning and inferencing.

Our qualitative data also indicates that our students are still building empathy, and acceptance of others, and so our focus on developing literacy skills through explicit teaching of reading and writing skills while using “story” aims to develop these key core competencies as well.  

Priority LearnersThis data allows us to recognize the importance of focusing on our learners that are currently in the developing and emerging range with their literacy skills.  
Baseline Data Fall 2025/26 reading assessments indicate that 15 % of our students are “emerging” at decoding, and 20 % are “halting” in their fluency.  19% of our students demonstrate “emerging” skills in the reading comprehension skill areas of retelling and summarizing.  
Action Statement (HOW)

1.      We will focus on engaging with authentic stories, including stories with Indigenous authors and protagonists to work on reading comprehension skills.  

2.      We will focus on reading support for students with intervention groups focusing on specific skill areas, such as decoding CVC words.  

3.      We will focus on reading support for students with an emphasis using background knowledge, context clues and inferences to help with understanding vocabulary words

Intended Impact (SO WHAT)
  • We will see growth in growth in both decoding and reading comprehension skills
  • Increased engagement and understanding of empathy in reading responses
  • increased background knowledge around diversity
Evidence of Impact (HOW WE WILL KNOW)
  • In our Spring reading assessment data, we hope to see an increase in the number of students who are proficient in decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension skills 
  • students will demonstrate an increased engagement about stories- evidenced by asking questions and responding to text thoughtfully and meaningfully.
Alignment StatementOur school learning focus aligns with Strategic Priority #1: Success for All Learners. In particular, our focus connects with objective #1 – improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for all learners to support success in all areas of the K to 12 curriculum.