Upper Grand District School Board

Summary

UGDSB serves around 34,000 students through 76 elementary and secondary schools. Dedicated to supporting the literacy development of their students, they assess their ability to read different kinds of text and express their thoughts accurately using the written word, at both grade 3 and 6. The assessments are completed via the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests and in addition, students are required to pass the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) literacy test in grade 10, as a requirement for graduation.

With a goal of supporting student success, UGDSB have a dedicated teaching and support staff of over 3,000, but despite this, they were facing challenges in being able to allocate the necessary support to every student with a ‘Special Equipment Allocation’ (SEA) grant, due to costs. As a means of providing software with features that were inclusive to the needs of many and without the requirement for additional software, they introduced Read&Write. To measure the effect of the software on cost efficiency and the ability to fulfil SEA claims, an impact study was carried out which also assessed the benefits to student literacy levels at all grades over the course of one year.