1000 teachers to be upskilled in rollout

A new evidence-based teaching approach to advance a child’s reading age is set to be rolled out across New Zealand.

More than 1000 teachers will be trained in the Better Start Literacy Approach, which improves new entrant pupils’ reading, writing and oral language skills.

The method raises ‘‘phonological awareness’’, as well as improving a child’s knowledge of letter sounds, vocabulary, listening comprehension and their ability to tell stories.

Using specially written children’s books and game-based activities, the approach was developed by a team of researchers at University of Canterbury (UC).

It will now be extended across the country thanks to a $10 million Ministry of Education award.

Professors Gail Gillon and Brigid McNeill have led the development of the system since 2015, when controlled trials compared the approach to existing teaching methods.

‘‘Children were more advanced in their reading and writing than where they were if they used the other types of classroom practices,’’ said Gillon, who is director of UC’s Child Wellbeing Research Institute.

‘‘It brings all the best evidence that we know about what leads to reading and writing success.’’

The funding will go towards workshops for wha¯nau and lesson plans and online resources for teachers, to lift the literacy skills of more than 70,000 children by 2023.

‘‘It’s much more systematic and consistent across schools.’’

Professor Gail Gillon

‘‘It’s quite a comprehensive approach because we know for reading success, vocabulary and oral language is really important, so they are comprehending what they read,’’ Gillon said.

‘‘It’s much more systematic and consistent across schools, than what we’ve had in the past.

‘‘We’ve got fantastic teachers in New Zealand. All of them will have been doing some part of these activities, but what really helps accelerate that learning success for children is the intensity and the explicit nature of the teaching.’’