A new study on literacy released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday shows that schools with a mix of students of different socio-economic backgrounds have better literacy scores than those that don't.
The study took the students' family backgrounds into account and found that only 40 per cent of successful reading habits are attributable to an advantaged background.
The study also showed that there are many students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds who show high performances in reading literacy. This is especially true when the students attend a school that also has students from advantaged socio-economic backgrounds.
Similarly, there are schools that do not perform well, even though they have students with more homogeneous socio-economic backgrounds.
These findings show that there are schools in every province that do well regardless of their students' backgrounds.
Alberta was the highest-scoring province while New Brunswick was the lowest. New Brunswick had a literacy score 33 points below the Canadian average.
Despite the fact that New Brunswick had the lowest score in reading performance, its score was close to the average of the member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Alberta had the highest literacy rate, comparable to Finland, which had the highest literacy rate of all of the OECD countries.
Aside from New Brunswick, the scores for the other Atlantic provinces were approximately 16 points below the Canadian average. If all provinces increased their scores 16 points, Canada would be the most literate country in the world.
Measurable factors that would explain the variation among provinces were assessed, including school resources, classroom and school practices. The most important factor was whether students were taught by teachers who were well-trained in language arts. Students also showed better performance in schools where good teacher-student relations existed along with stronger disciplinary practices.
Canadian youth participated in the Programme for International Assessment survey in the spring of 2000. The PISA is a survey of the reading, mathematics, and science skills of 15-year olds among member countries of the OECD. Wednesday's study -- “Variation in Literacy Skills among Canadian Provinces” -- used the data from the PISA to examine in detail the variation among provinces in general literacy skills in particular.
