The future of literacy is at stake – literally

Last week, as I observed more public servants losing their jobs thanks to government belt-tightening, I was interested to learn that the government has committed nearly $70 million to literacy education. Fantastic! Not just any education, but structured literacy – a phonics-based approach to reading that will replace the previous mixed approach, which involved contextual “whole language” learning.

There has been a growing phonics lobby in New Zealand, with many parents complaining that the previous approach failed their children. So how does phonics work? I’m no expert, but I know that phonics prioritises the learning of spelling rules for the children to use to decode words, rather than reading a book and gradually recognising words in context.

My late mother was an expert, and taught many apparently “unteachable” children to read. No zealot, she mainly used whole language learning as it was more interesting, but told me she “pulled out” phonics where a child seemed to be struggling.

I recently experimented with my fiveyear-old (great) niece, who loves books. We read a book whole language style, where she guessed words but wasn’t technically reading all of them. Then I went through another book, phonics style, making her sound out the letters to decode the words. (Adults read both phonetically and contextually).

At the end, I asked if she would like another story. “Yes,” she replied enthusiastically, “as long as we don’t do any learning this time”.

What is interesting about this current initiative is that even though there is debate amongst experts about the best approach, the government has put all its egs, I mean eggs, in one basket. Will they do the same with maths, checking that when children add 79 to 19 they add the nines and carry the one old-style, rather than adding 80 to 20 then subtracting 2?

Much of the inspiration for this government’s education policy has come from England, which is a pity as England is not doing terribly well in reading. According to an article on The Conversation website, written by three English (lefty) academics, in 2022-3, 30% of English five-year-olds were not meeting the expected standard for literacy at the end of their first year of school. Sound familiar?

Maybe England needs a phonics boost like here? Trouble is, England switched to a phonics-based approach in 2006. The academics go on to say that less than half of children aged eight to 18 say they enjoy reading – the lowest level since 2005, with no discernible improvement since phonics were introduced. Some Englishspeaking countries that relied less on phonics did better.

“Our view,” said the professors, “is that part of the reason why so many children do not experience joy in reading is the excessive focus on phonics in early education.”

Is it fair to expect that children should experience joy when they read, or should it be “heads down, bums up”? With government mandating an hour a day on reading, writing and maths, I worry that beauty, joy and engagement have less importance in education than achievement standards and assessment.

Will sounding out lists of words phonics-style, rather than reading captivating stories, really make a difference? Will phonics books with sentences like “Tim taps it. Sam sits in” capture our childrens’ imagination? Give me Wonky Donky, I mean Donkey, any day of the week.

Isuspect our falling reading standards have way more to do with our attitude to reading than whether phonics or whole language learning is emphasised in schools. In a recent interview, the ACT arts spokesperson couldn’t name one New Zealand author. As with maths, many of us see reading as simply something that our kids should be taught, not something we should embrace ourselves.

For many Kiwis, a sports podcast or game on the phone takes priority over reading a non-fiction book or, heaven forbid, a novel. Perhaps some of the education budget could be spent on finding out whether New Zealand children enjoy reading, and if not, why not? I also suspect that if every Kiwi parent read to their child for at least half an hour a day, our literacy standards would skyrocket.

I sincerely believe that our prime minister and education minister genuinely want to improve the reading standards of New Zealand children, and I appreciate they haven’t beaten up teachers over the current situation. But whether mandating structured literacy in our schools will improve standards remains to be seen.

As for my niece, she recently picked up a favourite book that Uncle Dave had bought her (My Bum is Broken) and read the entire thing out loud alone. Did she accurately read every word phonicsstyle? Definitely not, but she got some words, and guessed the rest. But the best thing was the look of satisfaction on her face when she finished, carefully placing My Bum is Broken in the book pile to be “read” again next time she visited. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, whether those words are read contextually or through governmentmandated phonetics.