In April 2025, SAC wrote a letter to Saskatchewan’s Minister of Education, Everett Hindley, following up on several items from our February 3 meeting. We also took the opportunity to acknowledge that we were pleased to see an emphasis on student literacy in the 2025-2026 Budget, with the Government of Saskatchewan dedicating an additional $2 million to advancing the work of the ministry and education partners to improve kindergarten to Grade 3 reading levels across the province.

In our letter, we asked whether the expertise of speech-language pathologists (S-LPs) had been solicited for this project and reiterated that, as noted in our new SAC Position Paper on the Role of Speech-Language Pathologists in School-based Literacy, S-LPs are the preeminent regulated healthcare professionals recognized as experts in oral and written communication.

On August 19, we received a written response from the Minister’s office, thanking us for the Position Paper and confirming important next steps. The letter stated that, in the 2025-2026 year, “a provincially approved reading screener will be implemented in every publicly funded school to help teachers identify students who may require additional supports in learning to read.”

The response also highlighted that a key action to improve reading levels in the primary grades is the renewal of K-Grade 3 language arts curricula, and that the ministry plans to consult with speech-language pathologists to critically examine these curricula.

SAC plans to follow up with the Director of Student Achievement and Supports at the Ministry of Health to ensure S-LPs’ expertise continues to be included in this important work.