The Herald understands the Government will today unveil what it believes is positive education data showing the “transformational” effect mandatory structured literacy is beginning to have on young New Zealanders.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford will discuss the data at length this afternoon following a meeting of Cabinet, as the Government aims to put educational results in focus this week.
The results are expected to show across-the-board improvement for young children, with the Government believing its investment in structured literacy, including funding professional development and resources for teachers, to be the key ingredient.
Structured literacy, which involves explicitly teaching word identification, including through phonics, became mandatory in schools at the start of this year. It was used in many schools before this, but not necessarily by every teacher at every year level.
Stanford has called it a “back-to-basics” approach, following several studies that found reading results were declining. For example, New Zealand’s results have been declining since 2006 in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which is done every five years.
Alongside structured literacy, phonics checks have also been available to teachers to understand a child’s ability to read words by sounding out their letters.
These checks are initially done 20 weeks after a child has begun school, or after about six months. They aren’t mandatory yet but will be in 2026.
The results are collected by the Ministry of Education “to build a picture of how well the education system is working for our beginning readers”.
In their phonics check, children are asked to read from a list of up to 40 words. Some of these are real words, while others are made up, requiring the child to use their knowledge of the relationship between letters and sounds to read out the word.
One set of data the Government will today highlight is the percentage of children who need support after their 20-week phonics check. This extra support could look like going off in small groups with a teacher, or one-on-one instruction.
Ministry of Education data show that in Term 1 this year, 52% of assessed children needed support following their 20-week check.
However, in Term 3, the percentage of children who needed support after their 20-week phonics check had fallen to 33%.
These children will have spent their entire time in primary school being taught under a mandated structured literacy approach.
The Government believes this shows that the longer a child spends in a school doing structured literacy, the better their results will be. Over time, teachers are also expected to become more proficient with the style of teaching, leading to gains for the children.
As well as giving teachers an idea of how well a child is progressing in phonics and what additional support they may need, the checks are seen as a way of identifying for the Government where investment is needed.
Teaching structured literacy was a key education election promise by the National Party in 2023.
Budget 2024 included $67 million to provide teachers with professional development and resources for structured literacy.
Ahead of it becoming compulsory, the Government announced that, depending on their roll sizes, schools could receive funding of up to $5000 a year over four years to buy structured literacy materials such as decodable books and games.
While the mandating of structured literacy and phonics checks was welcomed by some in the sector, others have said focusing on phonics is a narrow approach to teaching reading and some students benefit from personalised learning.
“I’m a bit concerned that this preoccupation with phonics and phonics testing is going to put a lot of attention on one element of what is required for young children to learn to read, and it isolates that one element and seems to ignore the others,” University of Canterbury education lecturer Dr Jae Major told RNZ last year.
When Stanford announced funding for structured literacy last year, she said it was a “critical part” of reaching the Government’s target of getting 80% of Year 8 students to curriculum level by 2030.
“Structured literacy goes hand-in-hand with our requirement for schools to teach an hour a day of reading, writing and maths, as well as implementing a curriculum that is rich in knowledge and clear about what students should be learning and when.”
Jamie Ensor is a senior political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.