After spending two years focusing on improving the reading skills of students in the Chinook School Division, the division is changing their focus.

The new focus, which started at the beginning of this school year, is writing following a provincial shift.

Kathy Robson - a curriculum coordinator with the Chinook School Division, said that they haven't completely shifted away from reading, because reading and writing have a direct correlation.

"I think they happen at the same time," she said. "I would never want teachers to say 'I'm only focusing on reading and ignore the writing or vice-versa' so I think they're happening at the same time and I think they help each other. I know with our youngest students we want them to start writing early and young."

The provincial government is looking for 80 per cent of students within each school division to be at or above grade level in reading, writing, and math by 2020.

Chinook is reporting after spending two years focusing on reading, that 84 per cent are meeting or exceeding expectations, a jump of 4 per cent since 2015.

The school division doesn't have a baseline for writing yet, but Robson did say the skill is needed in everyday life.

"I think it's an important part of what kids need to learn in school is how to be effective writers," she said. "It's important that they learn how to communicate through writing and it's a skill they're going to need throughout their lives."

In this year's fiscal budget, handed down by the Brad Wall government, the majority of the cuts to education impacted support services which help improve students literacy and math skills.

"I think it will have an impact absolutely," Robson said. "I know our professional development days have been reduced and our coaching has been reduced. We know that those are two things that help our teacher improve their teaching and then help students become better writers, so I think it's going to be a slow pace (on improvements) as we have reductions."

The school board is expecting to have writing numbers available in June of 2018.