P.E.I. student math skills improving, but literacy slipping

With four years of assessment results now available, it's possible to track classes as they move through the school system, and there is good news and bad news.

• P.E.I. provincial assessments show mixed results

First, the good news.

Generally speaking math skills amongst P.E.I. students are improving. The Grade 3 assessments have slipped a little over the years, but Grade 6 skills have improved significantly, and grade 9 skills slightly.

With four years of results in, it is now possible to track the performance of particular classes as they move through the system, because the Grade 3 students from 2013 were tested in Grade 6 this spring, and the Grade 6 students tested in Grade 9.

Both classes showed significant improvements.

• The 2013 Grade 3 class performance improvedfrom 65 per cent to 77 per cent.
• The 2013 Grade 6 classperformance improvedfrom 57 per cent to 69 per cent.

Reading comprehension

Now, the bad news.

Literacy skills are mostly on the decline, and even in areas where they seem to be improving the picture is ambiguous.

Students outside of French immersion are seeing scores slipping again in Grade 3, while there is a recovery in Grade 6. The province discontinued the testing for Grade 9.

While the Grade 6 assessments show significant improvement from last year, if you compare that performance with how that class did in Grade 3, there is a drop.

In 2013 88 per cent of that class met expectations. In 2016 82 per cent did.

French immersion

The performance of French immersion students in writing is some of the worst in the assessments.

Less than half of students in Grade 6 are meeting expectations, but there was a significant improvement this year for Grade 3 students.

The writing skills of the Grade 3 class of 2013 appear to have fallen off considerably. In 2013 58 per cent were meeting expectations; in 2016 only 39 per cent were.

Full table

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