Catholic students in Grey Bruce with learning disabilities will receive extra literacy help.
A pilot project for the Bruce Grey Catholic School Board has worked.
Staff took 8 bright students with learning disabilities, housed them at Mother Teresa in Walkerton and provided them with intensive literacy support every day before integrating them back into their regular classrooms.
Each student was supplied with their own lap top, complete with specialized software to address their needs such as speech text software.
The results of the test project, an overwhelming success.
Superintendent Catherine Montreuil says half of the students are now performing at
the provincial level and the other half are expected to reach the target by mid year school term.
The program is now wrapping up — and the Catholic Board will now apply the strategies and expertise gained from this experience to all schools.
Montreuil says it will help close the gap for students with learning disabilities.
All special education teachers in the Catholic Board will now receive the same specialized training that teacher Amy Kieffer received to run the program.
Kieffer says the intensive support the students received has armed them with the skills they need to not only cope but even thrive in the normal classroom setting.
About 12 per cent of students within the Bruce Grey Catholic School Board have been identified with some form of learning disability.
