New entrants behind in reading

Some children who miss out on early child education are so far behind they need special tutoring before they can even participate in a one-on-one reading programme, a Northland principal says.

Totara Grove School principal David Hain said some new entrant students had to be coached to the level required for the Government's high-needs reading recovery programme, which is supposed to cater for students who have struggled with literacy in their first year of school. "There are a few students who come to school and they may not have had any early childhood [education] or ... have very poor oral language," he said.

"These children meet the criteria for reading recovery as they are the most 'in-need' students, but some of them wouldn't be able to participate in the programme because they wouldn't be up to the level of learning."

Mr Hain said the decile two school, which had about 300 students from years one to six, ran literacy development programmes to cater for such pupils. He welcomed a proposal from the Labour Party to increase reading recovery funding under its new education policy, announced at the weekend by party leader David Shearer. "We have two to three children on it at any one time," Mr Hain said.

"[But] if we had a full-time reading recovery teacher, they would be working all day and see eight children."

The programme helps about 14 per cent of 6-year-olds nationally and Mr Shearer said only 59 per cent of low-decile schools had access, compared with 73 per cent of high-decile schools.

Labour planned to extend the programme to all schools, making it available to about 5000 more 6-year-olds each year, costing an extra $20 million annually.

Labour's plans:

• 
  Extend reading recovery to all schools, making it available to 5000 more 6-year-olds a year. Cost $20 million
• 
  Make National Standards optional
• 
  Introduce individual report cards for each school
• 
  One meal a day for children in decile 1 to 3 primary and intermediate schools