The OSSLT is Ontario's Grade 10 literacy test, and passing it — or completing the equivalent course — is one of the requirements for the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. It doesn't appear on your child's report card, it carries no credit, and it doesn't affect any course mark. Students who aren't successful can write it again or take a course that satisfies the requirement instead.
That last point is the one worth holding onto. The test matters, but it has more than one exit, and a single unsuccessful result is not a barrier to graduating.
The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test measures the reading and writing skills expected of students across all subjects by the end of Grade 9. It's set and marked by the Education Quality and Accountability Office, the province's assessment agency — not by your child's school or teacher.
It isn't a subject test. Nothing your child studied in a particular course is being assessed. What's being checked is whether they can read different kinds of texts, understand them, and write clearly enough to be understood — the skills every other course assumes they already have.
Most students write in Grade 10. The test is taken online, on a digital device, in person at school during the school day.
It runs in two sessions. According to EQAO, Session A is designed to take about 65 minutes and Session B about 75 minutes. After the two sessions, students complete a voluntary questionnaire about their attitudes toward literacy, which isn't scored.
Test dates vary. EQAO sets the windows and individual schools choose their day inside them, so the date differs by board and sometimes by school. Ask the school directly which day your child is scheduled for — it's the first thing you need in order to plan anything.
Results are reported as a scale score between 200 and 400. A score of 300 is the minimum for a successful result.
The score isn't a percentage or a count of correct answers. EQAO uses a statistical method called Item Response Theory, which places a student along a continuum of literacy ability based on both their answers and the difficulty of the questions they answered. Two students with the same number of correct responses can receive different scale scores.
This matters for one practical reason: there's no reliable way to calculate "how many questions my child needs to get right." Preparation is better spent on the skills than on arithmetic about the score.
Reading and writing, both weighted in the result. Students encounter a range of text types and answer questions about them, and they produce writing of their own.
The reading skills that matter most:
Understanding what a text directly states
Inferring meaning the author implies but doesn't say
Identifying a main idea and distinguishing it from supporting detail
Making sense of unfamiliar text types, including informational and graphic texts
The writing skills that matter most:
Organizing ideas so a reader can follow them
Developing a point with relevant detail rather than repetition
Writing clearly enough that meaning survives, including spelling and punctuation
Because this is general literacy rather than course content, the most effective preparation is also the least exciting: reading widely and writing regularly. Where a student has a genuine gap, targeted work on reading comprehension closes it faster than practice tests alone.
Start with EQAO's official practice test. It's free, it runs on the same platform as the real test, and familiarity with the interface removes a surprising amount of test-day stress.
Beyond that, the useful preparation is ordinary:
Read non-fiction as well as fiction — news, articles, explainers. The test uses informational texts many students rarely meet outside school.
Practise writing to a time limit. Many students can write well but not quickly.
Work on answering the question that was asked, which is where a lot of otherwise capable students lose ground.
Ask the school what supports it offers. Many run OSSLT preparation sessions.
Don't over-prepare. This is a minimum-standard literacy test, not a competitive exam, and most students who read and write reasonably well will be successful without any special preparation at all.
Not sure whether your child's literacy is where it needs to be? A free assessment will show you exactly which reading and writing skills are solid and which aren't, usually in about an hour. See how high school English tutoring works.
There are two routes to the literacy requirement, and the second one leads to exactly the same diploma.
Retaking the test. Students who aren't successful can write the OSSLT again.
The OSSLC. The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course is a credit course that satisfies the literacy requirement in place of the test. EQAO's guidance is that a student becomes eligible for the OSSLC after having had two opportunities to write the OSSLT and having been unsuccessful at least once. Principals also have discretion to allow a student to enrol earlier, where they judge it to be in the student's best interest.
A student who meets the requirement through the OSSLC graduates with the same Ontario Secondary School Diploma as a student who passed the test. There's no annotation and no distinction on the diploma.
If your child has been unsuccessful once, the practical question is whether another attempt is likely to go better or whether the course is the more realistic route. That's a conversation to have with the school, and the guidance counsellor is usually the person who knows the options best.
Accommodations are available based on student need, and they're arranged through the school rather than applied for separately by families.
If your child has an Individual Education Plan, the accommodations they use in day-to-day work are generally the starting point for what's available on the test. Speak to the school well before the test window rather than in the week beforehand, since arrangements take time to put in place.
Ask specifically what has been recorded for your child and confirm it matches what they actually use. Accommodations listed on an IEP and accommodations a student genuinely relies on aren't always the same thing.
No. The OSSLT is a graduation requirement rather than a graded course component, so the result doesn't appear on the report card and doesn't affect any course mark. It also carries no credit toward the diploma's credit count. What it affects is the literacy requirement, which can also be met through the OSSLC.
A scale score of 300, on a scale that runs from 200 to 400. Because EQAO scores using Item Response Theory rather than a raw percentage, the scale score reflects both which questions were answered correctly and how difficult those questions were. There's no fixed number of correct answers that guarantees a 300.
Yes, and most students in this position do. The literacy requirement can be met by retaking the test or by completing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course, and the resulting diploma is identical either way. An unsuccessful first attempt is a detour rather than a dead end.
Results come through the school rather than directly to families, and they take some months to arrive after the test window. Your child receives an Individual Student Report showing their scale score and outcome. If you haven't heard anything by late in the school year, ask the school rather than waiting.
For most students, no — it's a minimum-standard test and general reading and writing ability carries them through. Targeted support makes sense where a student has a real literacy gap, has already been unsuccessful once, or has significant test anxiety. In those cases the work is usually on underlying comprehension and writing rather than on test technique.
The OSSLT checks whether your child has the reading and writing skills expected by the end of Grade 9. It's scored from 200 to 400, 300 is the standard, and it has no effect on marks or credits. If it doesn't go well, a retake and the OSSLC both lead to the same diploma.
If your child's literacy is genuinely behind rather than just untested, that's worth addressing before Grade 10 rather than after. Talk to us about where your child is at — we'll find out which specific skills are missing and match them with a certified teacher who can build them, in your home or online.
This article describes the OSSLT as set out by EQAO. Test windows, procedures, and accommodation processes can change from year to year, and individual schools set their own test dates. Confirm details with your child's school.
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