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Erin York created this resource as part of an independent study during her Master of Education. She chose this topic after having many questions about benchmark literacy testing as a parent with kids in Ontario public schools. She plans to continue developing parent-centric resources that make Ontario education systems more transparent and accessible for families.
At a Glance Summary
- Acadience is a universal, evidence-based check-in on students' essential literacy skills that can help to shine a light on specific skills that your child may need some extra help in.
- A score below benchmark means your child may benefit from some extra support or attention to help them develop their reading skills – it does not mean failure.
- You, as a caregiver, are informed about and can support your child at home in addition to the supports they receive at school.
Want to know more about this but in a video format? The Upper Canada District School Board held a webinar for parents that explained what the Acadience assessment is, how the testing is done, and what you can do to help your child at home.
Did your child come in below benchmark on the Acadience reading assessment?
First, take a deep breath. Scoring below benchmark does not mean your child can’t or won’t catch up. It means they need extra attention right now to gain the literacy skills they need.
Acadience is a quick check-in assessment that teachers in Ontario schools use early in the school year in Senior Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 to see how each student is doing with age-appropriate key reading skills. The assessment helps teachers identify kids who need extra literacy support and pinpoints some of the specific skills kids may need help with. Kids who score lower than the benchmark are then given targeted support that helps them improve those skills.
What does benchmark mean?
Acadience literacy measures whether students are on track to master essential literacy skills. In order to figure this out, they compare your child's reading skills with a target for their grade and time of year. It is one small part of a much bigger landscape of literacy education.
Find out about Acadience Reading Benchmarking
How do early literacy screeners work?
You can find the Acadience Reading K-6 Assessment Manual on their website for more detailed breakdowns.
According to Ontario's Policy/Program 168 (2023), early literacy screeners are required to be administered to all students in Senior Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 near the beginning of the school year in Ontario publicly-funded schools. Administering the screeners at the beginning of the year means that students who don't meet the benchmark are eligible to receive additional supports as soon as possible.
- Students who meet the benchmark in the fall assessment have their assessment date and a checkbox recorded on their term 1 report card. It is optional for them to retake the test later in the year.
- If a student scores below the benchmark in the fall, their parents are notified, and supports and tiered interventions are determined. It is mandated that students repeat the literacy assessment again by March if they scored below the benchmark in the fall. Those results are recorded on their term 2 report card.
What is assessed?
Each grade is assessed on different skills based on the time of year and their grade. In Ontario, assessment is required from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 2.
Acadience is a screening tool and not a diagnosis. If you are concerned about the possibility of Dyslexia, talk to your child's teacher.
Skills are assessed in Senior Kindergarten through two one-minute sessions in the fall.
- First Sound Fluency - This assessment measures how well a child can hear and say the first sound in a word. For example, saying the word 'cat', asking what the first sound in the word is 'k'.
- Letter Naming Fluency - students are shown uppercase and lowercase letters and are asked to say the names of the letters.
Later in the year, Senior Kindergarten students are also assessed on:
- Nonsense Word Fluency - to test how much students are able to recognize and blend sounds, they are asked to read, 'nonsense' words. They don't use real words because students may know them from memory. For example, a nonsense word might be 'reg'.
- Segmenting Words into Sounds - Students are asked to segment a word into sounds. So, a student would be asked to identify all of the sounds in a word like jump: j | u | m | p.
Skills are assessed in Grade 1 through 3 one-minute sessions.
- Letter Naming Fluency - Students are shown upper and lower case letters and are asked to say the name of the letters.
- Segmenting Words into Sounds - Students are asked to segment a word into sounds. So, a student would be asked to identify all of the sounds in a word like jump: j | u | m | p.
- Nonsense Word Fluency - to test how much students are able to recognize and blend sounds, they are asked to read, 'nonsense' words. They don't use real words because students may know them from memory. For example, a nonsense word might be 'reg'.
Later in the year, Grade 1 students are assessed through:
- Nonsense Word Fluency - to test how much students are able to recognize and blend sounds, they are asked to read, 'nonsense' words. They don't use real words because students may know them from memory. For example, a nonsense word might be 'reg'.
- Oral Reading Fluency - there are three one-minute oral reading fluency passages. Students are asked to read each one for one minute each then asked to retell what they've read, assessing for both fluency and comprehension.
In Grade 2, the beginning of the year assessment is a little bit longer (takes around 10 minutes) and consists of two parts.
- Nonsense word fluency - to test how much students are able to recognize and blend sounds, they are asked to read, 'nonsense' words. They don't use real words because students may know them from memory. For example, a nonsense word might be 'reg'.
- Fluency passages - there are three one-minute oral reading fluency passages. Students are asked to read each one for one minute each then asked to retell what they've read, assessing for both fluency and comprehension.
The assessment later in the year for Grade 2 only includes the fluency passages.
The Ontario Government's early literacy screening policy allows school boards to choose to provide assessments in either the language of instruction of the program or the language of the school board in which they are enrolled. It is best to ask your child's teacher what language they are being tested in.
Accidence recommends that students are assessed in the language they are taught instructed in.
If they are assessed in French, the assessment works in the same way as the English assessment, it just uses French language and pronunciation instead of English.
How do I help my child?
Tiered Support at School
The Ontario Government's Policy/Program 168 explicitly states what supports need to be provided in schools. It outlines that there is a core belief that all students can learn to read and that instruction for all students (at all tiers) needs to be evidence-based.
- Tier 1: All students receive Universal Design for Learning and differentiated classroom instruction in literacy. Universal Design for Learning removes barriers to learning by providing flexible methods for presenting content, expressing knowledge, and engaging students.
- Tier 2: Based on assessment scores and teacher observations, some students may receive additional small-group support in addition to the Universal Design for Learning classroom instruction. "For students who are not meeting the screening benchmark (and have difficulty with one to three foundational reading skills)."
- Tier 3: Students with more significant or ongoing challenges receive the most intensive support, often in smaller groups or individually. This is for, "...students who have either a number of difficulties, a considerable degree of difficulties, and/or persistent difficulties in foundational reading skills...despite Tier 1 instruction or Tier 1 and 2 instruction."
If students continue to struggle with these supports, teachers are directed to work with their principal to determine what additional supports might be needed. Ontario Government's Policy/Program 168 explicitly outlines that the school’s special education teachers, in-school support, and other board supports should be engaged to determine the next steps of support.
Supports and support services vary by school and school board, so the resources available to your child may differ depending on where they attend school.
What can I do at home to help my student who didn't meet the benchmark?
What should I do right now?
- Talk to your child's teacher about what skills your child needs support with.
- Ask what supports are being provided for your child at school.
What activities can help my child at home?
The best thing to do is to figure out ways to integrate small literacy activities into your day-to-day life in a way that is natural and sustainable for everyone (specifically for you as a parent). Fit in a few minutes' worth of games while you wait for a bus, while you are grocery shopping, while you are stuck in traffic, while you are prepping dinner, etc. A few minutes a day can add up and help reinforce the work your child is doing at school. A few minutes is also far less daunting for both you and your child.
- Go on a letter hunt. Write five different letters in both upper- and lowercase on 10 sticky notes. Hide them around a room and send your child on a hunt to find the matches. Once they’re paired up, talk about each letter and its sound. For example: “Here we have d. It makes the /d/ sound. What can you find in this room that starts with that sound?” This idea was inspired by BusyToddler.
- Make bath time a literacy game. Have some uppercase and lowercase letter magnets or foam bath letters? Use them to practise matching letters, or turn it into a race by seeing how quickly your child can find each pair. Add a stopwatch if your child loves a little friendly competition.
- Get silly with storytime. The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak is packed with ridiculous words and sounds. Invite your child to help you sound out the silly words.
- Keep a literacy kit in the car. Stash a small dry-erase board and marker in the car. Choose three letters for your child to write, then challenge them to put the sounds together. It’s an easy way to sneak in a few minutes of practice while you’re on the go.
- Turn I-Spy into a sound game. Instead of saying “I spy something blue,” choose a sound: “I spy something that starts with /s/.” A sign, sock, or seat could all work!
- Play “I’m Going to the Store.” Start with, “I’m going to the store and I’m going to buy cheese.” Your child has to add something that starts with the same sound. Keep going until you run out of ideas. Cheese, chicken, Cheetos, chocolate… the sillier the list, the better.
- Talk like a robot. For older kids, say a word in slow, choppy “robot” sounds. See if they can blend the sounds together and figure out your word.
- Racecar the word. Write a word on a piece of paper. Have your child sound it out slowly, then challenge them to “race car” the word by blending the sounds together smoothly.
- Become word detectives. Give your child little mysteries to solve using the words they see around them. At bath time, point out the labels on the shampoo and conditioner bottles and ask them to figure out which one is shampoo by sounding out the first few letters. You can do the same thing with ingredient labels while baking.
Build confidence with books. Have your child read a simple book to you, or take turns reading pages together. Keep it fun and choose books connected to their interests. If dinosaurs, hockey or space are their thing, use that enthusiasm to keep them reading. The goal is to build confidence and a love of reading.
Your local library likely has decodable books that you are able to check out and read at home. Library staff can help you find appropriate books for your child's reading level.
- Your Local Library: There are so many resources at your local library! Most Ontario libraries have a children’s librarian who can help you find decodable books, or books that are specific to your child’s interest, or decodable books in French.
- teachyourmonster.org: a free, interactive website with phonics games for kids
- Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation has a large number of different resources and ideas for how to use books at home to help in different ways.
- Reading Rockets is a national public media literacy initiative based in the United States that brings the best research-based strategies to early literacy to life. They have a grade-level specific page with a long list of different activities that includes phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
I know many parents who have questioned their decision to enroll their children in French Immersion after seeing the benchmark results, feeling uncertain about how to support their kids with the skills they need to develop. Remember, your children will receive additional support at school, and there are plenty of ways you can help them at home, even if you don’t speak French. If your child has Dyslexia, Dyslexia Canada has an FAQ on French Immersion and an article about French Immersion that may be helpful for some parents.
Activities for non-French speaking parents with kids in French Immersion
If you don’t speak French and your child is not meeting the literacy benchmarks, it might feel overwhelming.
The good news: research shows that literacy skills that your child develops in one language can transfer to the other. For example, while the letters may not sound the same and the words are different between French and English, the skill of blending sounds together remains the same across languages. Working on literacy skills in your child's first language can be beneficial to the second language.
This means finding literacy supports in your community in English can also help in French.
In Kingston, the Kingston Frontenac Public Library occasionally runs free literacy programs for children. BGC has a TruePhonics in-person program that gives instruction to both parents and kids together in 30-minute sessions in English.
Just remember that French Immersion students might be on slightly different footing than some children who have attended English school as they may not have received English literacy instruction in their French Immersion classroom as it is not required by the curriculum until Grades 3 or 4.
Adding in French Literacy Activities
If you are not a French speaker, working with your kids at home in English is completely fine. They receive instruction and help at school in French and that knowledge transfers.
If you are interested in adding in a little French at home, when you are working on literacy activities with your child, and it is an activity that they are enjoying, you can always try to add in French to the equation. For example, if you were doing a lowercase and uppercase letter matching activity, walk through the activity in English, and then ask them if they know what the French sound of that letter is. If they do know, let them be the teacher and instruct you on how to say it in French. If they are able to, you can always ask for a French word that starts with that letter.
Rewards in French
As I only speak very basic French and my children are highly motivated by rewards and screens, I have found working on the French Duolingo lessons together to be a great reward. It gives my kids a chance to be the teacher for me, and allows us to work on something together. I usually set a timer for 5-10 minutes to let my kids know how long we have to practice for before we start the reward activity.
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