New focus for teaching reading and maths set

Reading, writing and maths should be taught more consistently across all schools, the Government says, as it outlines the next steps in its plan to lift New Zealand’s dire literacy and maths achievement levels.

A common practice model will be drafted by the end of the year to ensure teachers all have the same understanding of how to teach those foundational skills.

Speaking at Ma¯ ngere East Primary School in Auckland yesterday, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti told students some young people throughout the country weren’t getting the best teaching in maths or literacy.

“One of the things we’re looking at doing is making certain that all your teachers have the same idea around how to teach English, how to teach Ma¯ ori, how to teach maths. We know that they have to have the same idea, across every single teacher in this country.”

The new action plans published yesterday follow on from an earlier strategy launched in March.

Tinetti told media the sector had been “crying out for” a common practice model for teaching literacy and numeracy. They were being taught differently between schools, and sometimes between different classrooms in the same school.

But asked if teachers would now be told they all had to do the same thing — in the manner of national standards — Tinetti said that was not the case.

The model would be based on the same underlying principles, but would allow for different flavours, she said.

The action plans say the common practice model will be based on evidence and schools may need to review their assessment systems. But they also say the direction and content of the model has not yet been established.

The ministry will work with experts for the rest of 2022 on a draft and consult the education sector in the first half of 2023.

Tinetti said some elements were already being developed. She pointed to the Better Start Literacy Approach that has been rolled out for New Entrant teachers, showing there was a “clear pathway that we’re heading along”.

The Better Start Literacy Approach is a New Zealanddeveloped approach to teaching literacy for Years 0 and 1, which uses a systematic, explicit approach to teaching reading and writing and is based on the science of reading.