Ethan McKay came into Reading Recovery as a quiet, shy boy in Grade 1 at Wellington School in Winnipeg. His mother, Colleen, recalls that at first she had felt a little let down and sad about Ethan needing additional support in learning to read and write. But shebecame so interested in the Reading Recovery intervention that had been successful for her son that she went on take Reading Recovery training. Now she is using those new understandings about literacy processing to guide her teaching in a Grade 1 classroom.

Ethan is now in Grade 11 at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute and is an emerging youth leader in the aboriginal community. Recently, he was selected as part of an aboriginal youth exchange program between Northern Quebec and Manitoba bringing students together to experience the traditional Inuit ways. He hopes to become a social worker and help at-risk aboriginal youth to make a difference in his community. Always constant in his life is a love of reading, and on breaks during this part-time job at the Norway House Cree Nation Medical Treatment Access Program, he can be found engrossed in a good book.