Renovating While Living Here: Evergreen School Division’s Structured Literacy Journey

date: September 22, 2026

School systems rarely change because of a single data point, a single professional development session, or a single voice raising a concern. More often, change begins with a collection of evidence that leads to educators to wonder whether there is a problem and, if so, what the right response should be.

In Evergreen School Division, our journey toward structured literacy over the past five years did not begin with a literacy initiative. It began with uncertainty. That feeling you get in your gut that something is not quite right.

With the appointment of a new Student Services Co-ordinator, questions were coming in from every direction. A principal asked what interventions should be tried before a psychoeducational referral was considered. A clinician expressed discomfort diagnosing a reading disability when reading interventions varied considerably from school to school. Intervention teachers wondered whether there was a particular program they should be using, as many were relying on resources inherited from predecessors or discovered on office shelves. Student Services teachers were struggling to meet the needs of growing numbers of students requiring adaptations and intensive support. Classroom teachers were working tirelessly to support learners, yet many spoke openly about students they were not sure how to help.

Then there were the assumptions we didn’t know we were carrying. One conversation revealed that some educators had been explicitly taught that “sounding it out” was not a good reading strategy. The comment was met with surprise, but it also sparked curiosity. How had we arrived at such different understandings about something as fundamental as learning to read?

None of these questions, on their own, suggested the need for system-wide change. Together, however, they pointed toward a larger challenge. We had more students requiring intervention than our Tier 2 and Tier 3 systems could reasonably support. No matter how hard school staff worked, or how committed they were, the demand continued to outpace capacity. The issue was not effort. The issue was that increasing numbers of students required support beyond the classroom.

As we explored the reading research and examined our local data, we began to reach an unavoidable conclusion. We could not intervene our way out of this challenge. If we wanted fewer students requiring intensive support and more students experiencing success with reading, we needed to strengthen the tier one instruction all students received every day. The evidence increasingly pointed toward structured literacy as a framework for improving core reading instruction and creating greater consistency across classrooms and schools.

No one wakes up one morning and decides to renovate an entire house. More often, the decision begins with small discoveries. A sticking door. A soft spot in the floor. A draft where there shouldn’t be one. A few carpenter ants spotted near a window. Each issue can be explained away on its own. Together, however, they raise a more difficult question: What is happening behind the walls?

What followed the realization that something had to change was less like implementing a new program and more like renovating a house while still living in it. The work could not stop while the changes were being made. Students continued arriving every morning. Teachers and Educational Assistants continued teaching and supporting students. Principals continued leading schools. At the same time, many of us were being asked to revisit long-held beliefs, learn new approaches, and rethink practices that had been shaped by years of training and experience.

The renovation would eventually produce encouraging results. But perhaps the most important lessons were found in the dust, noise, frustration, anxiety and exhaustion of the construction itself.

Living Through Construction

Lesson 1: Change is Uncomfortable

There is a tendency to describe instructional change as a technical process. Educators learn something new, implement it, and improve results. Our experience was far messier.

For many educators, structured literacy challenged practices that had been learned in university, reinforced through professional development, and refined over years of classroom experience. One teacher reflected, “Before this shift, I believed that teaching reading through balanced literacy and guided reading groups was the right way to teach reading.” Another shared, “For over 20 years, I had taught guided reading using the three cueing method and was firmly planted on that hill at the beginning of our structured literacy journey.”

What may have been interpreted as resistance was really the challenge of making sense of new evidence alongside years of professional experience. How do you honour years of hard work while also recognizing that emerging evidence may require a different approach?

As one educator explained, “The hardest part of this transition was changing what we had believed for so long.” Another admitted, “At times, I wondered, did we make the right decision?”

Many educators worried about the students in front of them while they learned. One teacher reflected on a fear shared quietly by many. “I worried that I might have a year or two of students who would not learn to read and write in the way they needed while I was trying to figure this transition out.”

What is often overlooked in discussions about large-scale change is that uncertainty is not experienced only by teachers. School leaders also found themselves wrestling with difficult questions. Many principals had the same history of professional development, training, and practice as their teachers.

One principal reflected, “There were absolutely hard, worrying times, especially during those early days when we found ourselves in moments of questioning and uncertainty. Like many of my colleagues, I used the same kinds of assessments, cueing systems, materials, and groupings.”

Yet, for many leaders, the growing body of evidence made it difficult to ignore the need for change. “We were learning about Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, the Simple View of Reading, Cognitive Load Theory, and the limitations of working memory. Combined with the research-based professional development we had access to, both within and outside the division, it became hard not to stay the course.”

Looking back, one of the lessons from our journey is that meaningful change requires both patience and persistence. There were moments when frustration was high, confidence was low, and results had not yet appeared. During those years, school and divisional leaders were not always popular. However, if we truly believed that the evidence pointed in a better direction for students, abandoning the work at the first sign of discomfort was never a responsible option.

Lesson 2: Good Intentions are Not a Good Resource

While educators were willing to learn, enthusiasm alone could not drive implementation.

Our division began with significant professional learning. Kindergarten to Grade 3 teachers, Student Services teachers, and intervention teachers participated in Orton-Gillingham classroom training. We learned from researchers and practitioners such as David Kilpatrick, Linda Farrell, and Valdine Bjornson. We experimented with Heggerty, Fundations, Scholastic phonics resources, DIBELS assessments, and locally developed tools. We created a K-3 Foundational Word Reading Scope and Sequence and made the difficult decision to move away from Reading Recovery.

Yet for all of the professional learning and good intentions, many teachers found themselves piecing lessons together from multiple sources.

One of the clearest lessons from our journey was that educators should not be expected to become curriculum developers, assessment designers, and resource publishers in addition to everything else they do. The cognitive load was enormous. Teachers were learning new research, creating materials, redesigning routines, analyzing assessment data, and teaching every day.

As one educator described it, instructional practice becomes ingrained. Learning to teach reading in a fundamentally different way requires people to override years of habits, routines, and professional muscle memory.

What teachers needed was not simply direction. They needed practical, coherent resources that could make the work manageable.

The publication of UFLI proved to be a pivotal moment. Teachers repeatedly asked, “Can I just use this instead of pulling from a million different resources?” The answer was yes.

For the first time, many educators could see a clear pathway between the research, the professional learning, and the daily work of teaching children to read.

Lesson 3: We Believe What We Can See

Professional learning can spark curiosity. Research can create urgency. But belief often grows through experience.

What ultimately convinced many educators that the difficult work was worthwhile was not a presentation, a mandate, or a book. It was seeing students succeed.

One teacher recalled feeling uncertain when some students were initially not making progress. Then came a moment that changed everything. “The proof came when we began to see the results with our students. The data doesn’t lie. I vividly remember walking into my principal’s office saying, ‘I can’t believe these results. I’ve run the test three times because I thought I had made a mistake.’”

Others described seeing students transfer skills from the classroom into intervention settings. “I knew things were beginning to shift when students started bringing the knowledge and strategies learned in class to our Tier 3 sessions. They would tell me, ‘I learned this with my teacher.’ Sometimes they would finish my sentences.”

Teachers became advocates because they saw what was possible. Educational assistants noticed kindergarten students who entered school unable to recognize letters and, within months, were identifying letter sounds, reading words, and approaching books with confidence.

The implementation of Walk-to-Read models strengthened support for students. Classroom observations, coaching, and residency models helped teachers learn from one another. Seeing colleagues teach structured literacy confidently often proved more powerful than hearing about it.

Perhaps most importantly, educators discovered that adopting structured literacy did not require abandoning everything they valued about teaching. Relationship building, creativity, Indigenous perspectives, inquiry, and joyful classrooms remained intact. Teachers found that when students gained stronger literacy skills, new possibilities emerged rather than disappeared.

As one educator wrote, “Implementing structured literacy has been one of the most challenging shifts in my educational journey, but it has also been one of the most rewarding.”

Evidence Demands Evolution

As we reflect on Evergreen School Division’s structured literacy journey, one lesson stands above all others: improvement is not a destination. It is a commitment to continuous learning.

The shift to structured literacy required us to examine research, question assumptions, and reconsider practices that many of us had learned, embraced, and implemented in good faith. While that process was often uncomfortable, it reinforced an important truth about education. Our responsibility is not to defend what we have always done. Our responsibility is to remain curious enough to ask whether there might be a better way.

The results of this work have been encouraging. In the fall of 2022, only 52.78% of K-6 Evergreen students were reading at grade level. By the spring of 2024, that figure had increased to 62.99%. By the spring of 2025, 73.45% of students were reading at grade level, and our most recent results show 75.78% of students are now meeting grade-level targets. Indigenous student outcomes have also improved significantly, with 72.13% of Indigenous students now reading at grade level. Kindergarten students reached 76.92% at grade level in 2026 (compared to 21.43% in 2023), while Grade 1 students reached 80% (compared to 57.50% in 2023). Across three years, we have witnessed gains that many of us would have struggled to imagine when this journey began.

At the same time, these results do not represent the end of the story. Questions about middle years literacy, knowledge building, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, and cross-curricular literacy continue to shape our thinking. If the last several years have taught us anything, it is that today’s best understanding is often tomorrow’s starting point for new learning.

In many ways, this may be the true challenge facing education at today’s inflection point. Whether the topic is literacy, artificial intelligence, assessment, or student well-being, educators are increasingly asked to navigate new evidence, new questions, and new possibilities. The goal is not to find permanent answers. The goal is to build systems and cultures that can respond thoughtfully when those answers inevitably evolve.

The house we set out to renovate is stronger than it was when we began. But perhaps the most valuable result is not the renovation itself. It is the knowledge that, when new evidence emerges, we have learned how to pick up our tools, open the walls, and begin the work again. The willingness to evolve may ultimately be the most important thing we teach, and the most important thing we learn.

Reflection Questions

Change is uncomfortable: What has helped you successfully navigate a change? What can you learn from that experience to help your students, colleagues or team navigate change?
Think about a change that you are navigating. What tangible resources would simplify the process? What signs of success might you look for?

Meet the Expert(s)

Jessica Worden

Director of Programs and Student Services, Evergreen School Division

Jessica Worden is the Director of Student Services for Evergreen School Division in Manitoba. A former teacher, resource teacher, and school leader, she is passionate about literacy, inclusive education, and helping school systems translate research into meaningful change for students and educators.

Scott Hill

Superintendent & CEO, Evergreen School Division

Scott Hill is the Superintendent/CEO of Evergreen School Division in Manitoba.