Reading trials will emphasise sounding out words phonetically. Photo / File
Whanganui educators say work needs to be done to bring students, particularly those at a primary level, up to speed when it comes to literacy.
Plans are afoot from the Government to tackle the issue, with a five-year strategy to reform the way literacy is taught being outlined earlier this month.
Carlton School principal Gary Johnston said current education systems worked for many children but there needed to be a more strategic approach for those that found it "a little bit harder".
"We are finding a huge disparity in the foundational skills that kids have when they arrive at school," Johnston said.
According to a national monitoring study of student achievement in 2019, 37 per cent of Year 4 students and 65 per cent of Year 8 students had writing skills below curriculum level.
In reading, those numbers stood at 37 and 44 per cent respectively.
Part of the Government's plan involves a common practice model, which gives teachers more guidance about what students need to know when, and the best evidence-based way to teach it.
Remedial reading trials will emphasise sounding out words phonetically.
Phonics is the way sounds are represented by letters in an alphabetic language.
Johnston said he thought a balanced approach to literacy was the way to go.
"What we (Carlton) are doing is looking at phonics and placing that within a whole language context.
"It's teachers using their professional judgement and the best tools available for each particular child or group of children.
The fundamentals were always the first port of call, Johnston said
"Children struggle if they don't have the basics."
At present, most Kiwi schools use a "balanced literacy" approach, employing different teaching methods depending on the abilities of different students.
Regardless of what systems were put in place, they should be kept out of the political sphere, Whanganui Intermediate School (WIS) principal Katherine Ellery said.
"If you take a look at really successful models that people keep harking back to, Scandinavian models and parts of Canada for instance, the one thing they all have in common is they are not politically driven.
"The education system doesn't change with the Government.
"People that are qualified and experienced can set the scene for education and know it will stay in place."
WIS, a school of 550, would usually have between five and seven students who started at level one literacy, Ellery said.
This year there were 30.
"Seventy-five per cent of our Year 7s that started this year were not at expectation. That's not their fault and that's not the schools' fault.
"That is the effect of the pandemic and what happens when steady, structured, daily education gets disrupted to these levels.
"We've got to get generation Covid kids back up to speed."
Ellery said WIS had been using structured literacy since last year, which involved "looking at the word rather than the whole picture".
Teachers had completed professional development on the method after school.
"Structured literacy is about what makes a word up, why it sounds like that, and the rules around it.
"The emphasis (previously) has been on whole language but the problem is that when students go up the levels, and if they haven't made connections like the 'oa' sound and the 'ea' sound, it's very hard for them to progress into independent readers."
Aranui School principal Maryann Roberts said they had been using structured literacy since 2020.
"It's great that they (the Government) are putting these strategies in place, it's been a long time coming."
Roberts said teacher training was a key part of implementing any new systems.
"A lot of time and effort needs to be put into professional development.
"Here at Aranui, it's learning all the time, not just doing a course, learning something and being done with it.
"It's quite intensive."
Ensuring graduate teachers came with "a sound knowledge and understanding" was also important, Johnston said.
"There needs to be regular, ongoing, and manageable professional development for our current teachers as well.
"That's a real conundrum - finding the time and place to fit it all in."
Rather than a complete overhaul, there were a lot of things in the Government's plans that had been around for a number of years, Roberts said.
"This is a more in-depth look at it and actually putting it together, seeing how it can be rolled out through initial teacher education programmes and schools and what professional development is required for it."
She said it was fantastic that the Government was addressing numeracy as well.
"We've got so many things coming out with our curriculum.
"There was Aotearoa histories and digital, but the key areas of literacy and communication and mathematics remain really, really important."