First Steps in Literacy – Canadian Edition

On behalf of Pearson Professional Learning and First Steps®, welcome to the First Steps® homepage.

Teachers are challenged by the diversity within elementary and middle school classrooms. Students learn essential literacy skills and concepts at different rates and in different ways, but all students follow the same path and pass through the same developmental phases as they progress in their literacy learning. First Steps® provides the framework for teachers to identify each student’s phase of development and offer the appropriate support and learning strategies to move them from one phase to the next.

First Steps® has been implemented coast to coast since 1994, and now there’s a brand new First Steps® Canadian Edition with updated content and strands, new comprehensive Maps of Development, a new Overview Resource, and Canadian writing examples and case studies.

This new edition of First Steps® is the result of over a decade of reflection by practising teachers. It draws upon contemporary research and developments in the field of literacy learning that have occurred since the release of the original First Steps® framework. The New First Steps® in Literacy makes practical connections between assessment, teaching, and learning and caters to diverse needs within a classroom.

The professional development courses and the accompanying print resources provide a whole-school approach to improving students’ literacy outcomes. Each strand of First Steps® Canadian Edition consists of a course as well as two print resources and accompanying CD-ROMs.

• The Map of Development enables teachers to assess the development of students and to link appropriate instruction to phases of development. A comprehensive range of practical teaching and learning experiences is provided at each phase.



• A Resource Book offers concise theory and practical ideas for enhancing teaching practice.



• CD-ROMs provide teachers with recording sheets and a range of modifiable assessment, teaching, and learning line masters, as well as ideas to help parents support their child’s literacy development.

Linking Assessment, Teaching and Learning is a companion to the First Steps® framework. It includes information applicable to all four strands of literacy, together with practical support and ideas to help teachers link assessment, teaching, and learning.

More about First Steps® across Canada.