Education Department receives grant to study youth literacy, Transitions

Education Department receives grant to study youth literacy

by Joel O'Kane, BAAJ II

St. Thomas University was pleased to announce that a research team led by Dr. Heather Richmond of the Education Department in partnership with Cheryl Miles from School District 18 has received a $220,000 grant from the National Literary Secretariat for their project Boys’ and Girls’ Literacy: Closing the Gap. A press conference was held on February 12 in the rotunda of the Professional Studies Building.

Boys’ and Girls’ Literacy: Cloing the Gap has a goal of providing additional strategies to counteract the custom of boys continually achieving lower success rates than girls in the English Language Arts program. The principal researchers will assess the literacy performance of boys and girls to examine the discrepancy between their performances during the 2002-2004 school years. The results of this research will aid in developing appropriate teacher resources, reflecting students’ literacy preferences and creating research reports documenting children’s literacy preferences.

“The education department at St. Thomas University seems to be the perfect place to locate this research project,” Dr. Heather Richmond explains. “Literacy research is a natural fit with the mission statement of our university; a humanist, liberal arts perspective with a focus on community.”
On hand to present the grant on behalf of Human Resources Development Canada and the National Literacy Secretariat was the Honourable Andy Scott, MP for Fredericton.

“It is important that children develop strong literacy skills while they are still young so that they will be better prepared for the jobs of the 21st century,” he says. “I congratulate St. Thomas University for taking the initiative in this regard. I am convinced that the results of this project will have a positive impact.”

The research team will use most of the grant money to buy new books for children that will appeal to kids in the targeted Grade 4 to Grade 5 age group. This group of kids have learned basic reading and are interested in reading new things. Some books will be read to the children by a male mentor who will then form discussion circles after the reading to discuss themes in the book. In this way, researchers hope that they will create a lasting interest in reading for both genders.

The research team consists of practitioners and experts in literature, literacy assessment, statistics and administrative volunteers who will read and assess numerous books.