School’s out for summer, but Kimiko Shibata is already thinking about September.
The Kitchener teacher is trying to get familiar with the new language curriculum that the Ontario government dropped three weeks ago just as teachers were drowning in report cards, year-end ceremonies and feeling “June tired.”
There was little time to wade through the document. But no matter: teachers of Grades 1 to 8 have to be up-to-speed on some substantial changes come Sept. 5 including back-to-basics phonics, grammar, digital media literacy and the much-hyped cursive.
“A curriculum document really is just an outline of the topics and skills that have to be taught and assessed; it doesn’t provide any of the actual lessons or resources that teachers need to do the teaching,” said Shibata, an MLL (multilingual learner) teacher who works with newcomers at eight schools in her public board.