Grade 4 and 5 Alberta students will take standardized math and literacy tests starting this academic year, the provincial government announced on Wednesday. The change is an expansion of the testing program the province implemented for Kindergarten to Grade 3 in 2024 and legislated in 2025. “The primary reason to do this is to catch older students who may be falling behind before learning gaps widen and become even more prolonged in their academic lives,” Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides told CTV News Edmonton in an interview ahead of a 9 a.m. news conference in Calgary. He called Grade 4 a pivotal moment in primary education, when students transition from “learning to read to reading to learn,” and said it’s important to identify anyone struggling to keep up at that time. According to the province, after two years of screenings, the percentage of students in Calgary’s public school system who are struggling to read has dropped from 32 per cent to 10 per cent. In the Fort Vermilion School Division, the number dropped from roughly 50 per cent to 20 per cent. The government did not provide data for all school divisions. However, it said about one third or more of all Alberta students who required additional support after being tested in math and reading in the fall of 2025 no longer needed extra help. In total, the Alberta government will spend $20 million on screenings and related supports in 2026-27. The Grade 4 and 5 tests will be delivered to whole classes to save teachers time, unlike the individual tests that are administered in the lower grades, the province said. Officials from two school divisions participated in Nicolaides’ news conference, commending the screening program as an early detection system, and one that established consistency across the province. “Obviously we’ve seen some learning gaps, especially since we’ve had so many interruptions in our regular school system over the last number of years,” said Northern Gateway Public Schools’ trustee Christine Peck. “We have some children that we know are falling into those learning gaps, and so if we’re missing them in the K-3 tests, now we should be able to find them in (Grades) 4 and 5.” Schools will be required to share results with guardians as well as the education ministry, and provide any support needed as identified by the screenings. “This money goes specifically to help hire (educational assistants) or expand the number of hours than an EA is working,” Nicolaides said. The government will publish its first annual report on the matter in the 2027-28 academic year. Nicolaides described screenings as a 15-minute assessment of a student’s reading level, their vocabulary, and their math abilities. He said they can predict whether a child will have more difficulty in the future 80 per cent of the time. At this time, he said there are no plans to expand the program beyond Grade 5. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny
