Students from Schaller Education Centre are learning language and literacy with a progressive partnership between Ranch Ehrlo and the University of Regina, Faculty of Education.
This year marks the sixth year of the Literacy Program Partnership, an initiative to give Ranch students increased access to literacy while providing practical experience to pre-service teachers.
The fourth-year education students work with the Ranch youth to deliver culturally responsive literacy education. The pre-service teachers work to improve literacy learning such as fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary by appealing to the students’ cultural interests and foundations of understanding.
“We look at culture beyond the generic definition and take it to a much broader definition,” explained Fatima Pirbhai-Illich, associate professor of Language and Literacy Education at the U of R. “We try to tap the students’ funds of knowledge – the historical, social, contextual, and passed down learning. As soon as we start to work with the cultural responsive and the funds of knowledge the kids engagement becomes higher and higher. It’s really quite incredible to see.”
Hayley Maurer, Schaller school principal and Ranch Ehrlo director of education for programs south, said providing the youth with opportunities to incorporate their culture into their learning is an effective strategy to engage and motivate students.
“Part of showing that we care about the youth and want to help them grow is to gain an understanding of who they are, their culture, and where they’re from,” she said Tuesday afternoon.
The eight week literacy program concluded at U of R on March 8th with final presentations, reports, and a wrap-up celebration.
“I am always impressed with the presentations at the end of this project,” said Hayley. “Even though the students are somewhat shy to talk in front of so many people, the visuals that they have created show that they’ve put a great deal of time and hard work into this project and they are very proud of what they have accomplished.”
