This week's Portage la Prairie School Board meeting received an update on the Strong Beginnings Program.

It's been in place since 2014, and provides early years teachers the opportunity to assess new students' literacy strengths and weaknesses one-on-one, over a two day period.

Literacy Coach Sandra Shaw-Lyons says parents are very excited to have the one-on-one time, between students and teachers.

"A lot of the teachers, the same thing, very apprecative of the time to be able to sit down with the student. And you can tell from some our attendance indicators, For example, at Fort La Reine, in February, they had 77.5% attendance at a parent-teacher conference, whereas with Strong Beginnings, the attendance was almost 99%. So, parents are telling us that it is very important to have this time with the teacher."

Shaw-Lyons says they're seeing a significant benefit from Strong Beginnings' method.

"The biggest advantage is that, typically, without those Strong Beginnings days, teachers are trying to do this during class time. And so, the biggest benefit is that teachers are able to plan in September, to move that student quicker, and to start their literacy goals and instruction right away."