With a literacy focus on supporting students in their initial comprehension, specifically students' ability to follow instructions and understand text, our Science 8 teachers and all the grade 8 science students were involved in a science-based literacy assessment looking at students' proficiency with the following skills:

• Making Predictions
• Vocabulary & Word Selection
• Note-Making
• Identifying Main Ideas
• Making Connections

Based on these results, our literacy and numeracy support facilitators worked with the Science 8 teachers on Instructional Strategies for Comprehension.  Science 8 teachers implemented targeted instruction and strategies to improve students' comprehension and reading skills.  This included a reading strategy to hep students take good notes (read, sort, jot), and another reading strategy for comprehension (predicting with text features).