Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So following up on my Member's statement, I have questions for the Minister of education about early literacy.
So given that we have now adopted the BC curriculum, will the NWT similarly be adopting BC's approach to regular early literacy screenings conducted by teachers from kindergarten to grade 3? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, ECE is currently reviewing BCE -- or sorry, BC's early literacy screening model as part of its quest to strengthen early identification here in the Northwest Territories as well. So some NWT education bodies, Mr. Speaker, have already instituted early screening with students, and it is certainly my goal to see that this is applied consistently across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So that's a promising start. So given that other jurisdictions throughout the country, including Ontario, BC, and the Yukon, have now implemented policies requiring science-based methods of teaching early literacy, is it within the Minister's scope here in the NWT to similarly implement policies regarding early literacy instruction, or should this be left up to each school board or school or even individual classroom teachers the way it is now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, here in the Northwest Territories we certainly have a unique governance model that's found in one place across Canada, and that is here in the Northwest Territories where we really have a decentralized system here, and so what you find is that ECE sets the overall JK to 12 framework and funds the system while regional education bodies deliver programming and employ school staff. So what that essentially means as per the Education Act is the department just decides what the what might be, so what is our overall goal, which might be in this case, you know, high quality early reading supports for students, and then it is the education body that determines the how, so how that's going to be achieved. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So given that the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read report determined that the balanced literacy approach risks violating the human rights of Indigenous students in particular, and the fact that balanced literacy is still the dominant approach here, does the Minister consider the Right to Read recommendations to be relevant in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In short, the answer is yes. Yes, the Right to Read report is definitely very relevant here in the Northwest Territories as its focus is on equitable access to effective reading instruction, especially for Indigenous students. This report finds that queuing or balanced literacy approaches are not supported for teaching word reading and calls for explicit systematic instruction in phonetic awareness, phonics, decoding, and fluency. It's important to note here, Mr. Speaker, that the new NWT-adapted curriculum includes these foundational components as part of the new curriculum implementation. One of our focuses is to strengthen the consistency of these practices across education bodies, and it's also important to note that literacy is baked into courses right across the curriculum, not solely found in, for example, language instruction. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
