literacy in the early years in new zealand: policies, politics and pressing reasons for change

126 Literacy in the Early Years in New Zealand

Literacy in the Early Yearsin New Zealand: policies, politicsand pressing reasons for changeClaire McLachlan and Alison Arrow

Abstract

Although priding itself on high rates of literacyachievement, New Zealand’s track record in the lasttwo decades has noticeably declined. Successive NewZealand governments have invested heavily in try-ing to redress this decline with limited success.Demographic changes in population due to immigra-tion provide a partial explanation, but arguably, in-consistencies and omissions in policies and curricu-lum for early childhood and primary education arealso factors to be considered further. Evidence regard-ing New Zealand’s effectiveness in promoting literacysince the early 1990s is explored, against a potentialpolicy framework for the Early Years, identifying thechallenges and pressing issues for change.

Key words: policy, literacy, assessment, curriculum,Te Whariki

Introduction

Internationally, New Zealand has been highly re-garded for its approaches to promoting literacy; al-though within the country there have been long-standing debates about whether literacy should betaught using whole language- or phonics-based ap-proaches (Nicholson, 2000). New Zealand has a well-documented and alarming tail of reading failure,which has been shown through the Progress in In-ternational Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) studiesand other data, with noticeable differences in readingachievement for children of Maori and Pacific Islandorigin and boys.

Literacy achievement and participation of Maori andPasifika in early childhood and primary settings hasbeen a government platform for election for both ma-jor political parties in New Zealand in successive elec-tions. Both the former Labour government and nowthe National government have committed millions ofdollars to trying to remedy identified issues with liter-acy achievement. The current government, while dis-mantling initiatives in early childhood constructed bythe previous government, has a new campaign that istargeted specifically at the Early Years and focuses in-tensively on literacy and numeracy achievement and

participation in Maori and Pasifika children in low-decile areas.

In this paper a framework for evaluation of literacypolicy is proposed, against which New Zealand’s cur-rent policy and curriculum framework and initiativesare critiqued and discussed in relation to the evidenceof recent studies on literacy in the Early Years. Theimplications for review of literacy policy in the EarlyYears are explored.

Approaches to literacy policy

Ideology has played a critical role in the develop-ment of policy around literacy education, in NewZealand, but also in other countries (Allington, 2010;Olson, 2009). The predominant ideologies are drivenby perspectives of literacy that are either social practicederived (e.g. New London Group, 1996) or from cogni-tive science (e.g. Tunmer et al., 2006). The first iden-tifies literacy as a social practice, operationalised inpolicy as placing practice around literacy, includingengagement and social interaction, at the heart of liter-acy education (Olson, 2009). The second has been op-erationalised, for example, in the No Child Left Behindpolicy of Reading First and the sole importance placedon scientifically based reliable, replicable reading re-search or SBRR (Allington, 2010).

Olson (2009) states the primary definition of a literateperson is one who is able to read and write – literacyis a basic, personal competence. In order to turn thisinto policy, Olson states that governments need to dealwith two specific questions:

1. ‘how well?’, which is the question about standardsand

2. ‘read what?’, which is the question about content.

He argues that governments can either develop poli-cies that have very narrow, precise goals, so that mea-surement of achievement for all children can be un-dertaken; or more broadly framed goals, with theunwanted consequence that some children will notachieve them. Olson states that basic literacy – be-ing able to read and write – is mastered fairly readily

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Literacy

Literacy Volume 45 Number 3 November 2011 127

by most children, but being able to use literacy morepowerfully for different purposes, within differing so-cial practices and using different conventions requireshigher levels of understanding and mastery. Olson ar-gues that children need to gain understanding of so-cietal literacy in order to function fully and effectivelyand that the issues of what, how well and for what so-cial purpose focus the attention of most literacy policy-makers. Allington (2010), however, argues that muchpolicy to improve national literacy outcomes in theUnited States has been ideologically driven and basedpredominantly on cognitive science, rather than re-search driven and inclusive of social practices aroundliteracy. He argues that the federal push to incorporatehigh standards, test-based accountability and specifiedmodels of curriculum and instruction have failed toclose achievement gaps, because policies are based onideology rather than wide evidence.

Pearson and Hiebert (2010) state literacy has beenthe subject of considerable review over the last half-century, often at governments’ behest, to establishconsensus and synthesis within the field. They ar-gue that although the most recent American review,the National Early Literacy Panel report (NELP, 2008),strengthens the recommendations from previous re-views, it does not add insights that move the field ofearly literacy ahead. A list of 11 predictors of literacyachievement is identified in the NELP report, alongwith five interventions that have consistently beenshown to increase literacy competence and achieve-ment, which should underpin any early literacy pol-icy. However, Pearson and Hiebert critique the NELPreport for not extrapolating the pedagogies to sup-port the predictors of literacy achievement and thenature of effective early intervention programmes.McGill-Franzen (2010) further critiques the NELP re-port (2008), as she argues that early childhood teach-ers have the most marginalised knowledge and skillsin literacy and few opportunities for professional de-velopment, and could read the report as a mandatefor teaching code-based skills. She argues that teach-ers need professional development to increase knowl-edge of literacy acquisition, the needs of dual languagelearners, understanding of multilingual, multiculturallearners and a range of appropriate pedagogies.

What this very brief look at international policy-making suggests is that an Early Years literacy policyneeds to be based on the evidence of research synthe-ses, be inclusive of the social practices in which liter-acy occurs, determine what teaching and assessmentpractices are most effective, be inclusive of dual lan-guage learners and multicultural contexts and take ac-count of the implications for teacher education, teach-ing resources and professional development. Theseprinciples will be used for shaping an analysis of NewZealand’s early literacy policy against four criteria: thequestion of content; the question of standards; assess-ment issues and professional development; and therecognition of societal literacy demands.

Read what? A focus on content

Looking back to the 1990s, it is possible to see theorigins of current policy directions. New Zealand 14-year-olds participated in the International Associationfor the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)studies in literacy in 1990–1991 for the second timesince 1970, at which time New Zealand 14-year-oldswere placed first in achievement. In 1990 students’reading comprehension had not dropped significantly,but there were now noticeable gaps in achievement be-tween groups of learners, more so than other countries.New Zealand was also ranked sixth, falling from thefirst position it had been in 1970.

The New Zealand government, in the mid-1990s,then introduced a national monitoring system calledNational Education Monitoring Project (NEMP). TheNEMP survey covered the various curriculum subjectsincluding reading. Children were tested on readingtasks that a panel of experts felt they should be ableto cope with at certain age levels. In 1997, the first setof survey results revealed that 20 per cent of 8- and 12-year-olds were reading below the level set, and 10 percent of these were reading much lower than the bench-mark.

In October 1998, the New Zealand government an-nounced the goal that “By 2005, every child turning9 will be able to read, write and do maths for suc-cess” (Literary Taskforce, 1999). The Ministry of Edu-cation established a 20-person task force to offer ad-vice on how the goal should be defined, how progresstowards it could be measured and the ways in whichliteracy learning could best be supported. Their rec-ommendations included clear definitions, more infor-mation for teachers on reading instruction, analysis ofteacher education programmes, professional develop-ment, upskilling of school principals, a stronger baseof interventions, externally referenced assessment ofchildren’s progress and more assistance to low-decileschools. Noticeably, the task force did not include rep-resentatives from the early childhood sector and norwas attention focused on early childhood as a contextfor supporting literacy. The 10-person Literacy Expertsgroup that was formed to provide the task force withtheoretical and academic support had no early child-hood experts either (Literacy Taskforce, 1999).

In August 2001, the report of the Education and ScienceCommittee on the enquiry into the teaching of read-ing in New Zealand, Me Panui Tatou Katoa – Let’s AllRead, was released. The report called for major changesto the way reading is taught. One of the recommen-dations was “that by age nine, nearly all childrenshould be reading within or beyond an internationally-benchmarked ‘normal’ range, reflecting the status ofNew Zealand as one of the most literate nations onearth” (New Zealand House of Representatives, 2001,p. 3). The report called for tougher standards in teachereducation and a greater emphasis on phonics teaching.

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As part of the emphasis on literacy by the governmentat the time, the Ministry of Education (1999) publisheda revision of the National Administration Guidelines(NAGS), which placed a renewed emphasis on thebasics (reading and writing) and established a ‘Liter-acy Leadership’ programme designed to raise achieve-ment in literacy in primary schools. The EducationReview Office released a report on early literacy andnumeracy around the same time, which stated thatthere was a lack of systematic assessment of literacyin early childhood programmes and inconsistent useof assessment strategies such as the School Entry As-sessment (SEA) tools on school entry (ERO, 2000).

New Zealand’s literacy strategy was introduced in2004 with a range of measures designed to achievethe goal of all children reading by the age of 9. Thestrategy included professional development for pri-mary teachers and further resources, such as increas-ing numbers of Resource Teachers for Literacy, extrafunding for Reading Recovery teachers and LiteracyDevelopment Officers to assist schools. Other supporthas developed in response to the New Zealand Gov-ernment Select Committee enquiry into the teaching ofreading in New Zealand (New Zealand House of Rep-resentatives, 2001), such as the two new literacy hand-books for teachers, Effective Teaching of Literacy: Years 1–4 (Ministry of Education, 2003a) and Effective Teachingof Literacy: Years 5–8 (Ministry of Education, 2006).

Noticeably, the Literacy Strategy did not include earlychildhood teachers or settings. Although assessmentof literacy in early childhood was identified by ERO(2000), this issue was not addressed by the Ministryof Education, even though it had commissioned re-search into how teachers could assess children’s learn-ing within the early childhood curriculum frameworkof Te Whariki (Ministry of Education, 1996). Followingthe release of Te Whariki, the need for better alignmentof assessment procedures with the curriculum docu-ment became apparent (Carr, 2001; Nuttall, 2003).

What is questionable is whether New Zealand has arobust curriculum framework from which to deliverthe literacy outcomes that the government requires. Ananalysis of Te Whariki (Ministry of Education, 1996)shows its statements are broadly framed and opento interpretation in diverse early childhood services.Loosely based on socio-cultural theory, it does not ad-vise educators on how to promote literacy. Strand 4,Communication-Mana Reo, states that the languagesand symbols of children’s own and other cultures arepromoted and protected in an environment, wherechildren (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 16):

� develop verbal and nonverbal communication skillsfor a range of purposes;

� develop verbal communication skills for a range ofpurposes;

� experience the stories and symbols of their own andother cultures; and

� discover and develop different ways to be creativeand expressive.

In addition, the principles of empowerment, holis-tic development, family and community and relation-ships provide a relevant framework within which toencourage social practice elements of literacy. Refer-ences on how to promote literacy are non-specific, de-spite the evidence of early syntheses of literacy re-search (e.g. Adams, 1990) being available when thecurriculum was written, although it does suggest thatchildren will make the transition to school havingdeveloped some of the following skills and abilities(p. 73):

� language skills for a range of purposes;� experience with books;� development of vocabulary, syntax and grammar;� awareness of concepts of print;� enjoyment of writing;� playing with and using words;� opportunities to hear and use te reo Maori and other

community languages.

Apart from affirming the role of home languagesand community involvement, the document does notdiscuss multiliteracies and bilingualism/biliteracy inany depth, which are now significant issues in NewZealand in a time of growing immigrant populationand a changing global technological environment. Thecurriculum also does not provide specific advice onthe role of the teacher in terms of promoting liter-acy; key predictors of children’s literacy achievement(Nicholson, 2005; Pearson and Hiebert, 2010) – al-phabetic awareness and phonemic awareness – arenot named, although it does discuss children havingexperiences with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. TeWhariki highlights the need to plan for a coherentpathway for transition to school, but gives no specificson how this will be achieved.

The effectiveness of Te Whariki has never been for-mally evaluated, unlike the National Curriculum,which was evaluated twice prior to the release of a re-vised National Curriculum document (Ministry of Ed-ucation, 2007a), which interestingly is aligned with theprinciples of Te Whariki. We do not know how effec-tive the curriculum is for promoting children’s learn-ing in general (Nuttall, 2005) and literacy in particular.As Nuttall argues, there is no empirical evidence thatTe Whariki makes a difference to children’s learning.

The new National Curriculum (Ministry of Educa-tion, 2007b) goes some way to bridging the gaps be-tween Te Whariki, early childhood pedagogies andthe primary sector. Although it empowers schools todevelop their own curricula, the English curriculumhas become more specific compared to other areas.Children must learn to decode as well as take mean-ing from text. The previous document, English in theNew Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1994),did not reflect that children needed to learn to decode,



but assumed that they would begin reading from thebeginning.

The new curriculum document highlights that chil-dren will need to make connections between lettersand sounds, and will slowly develop a sight-wordreading vocabulary along with knowledge of text con-ventions (Ministry of Education, 2007b). The move togiving the ‘learning of the code’ a greater level of im-portance than previous Ministry of Education publica-tions is highlighted by the inclusion of items such as‘an awareness of rhyme’, “distinguish some phonemesin spoken words”, “be able to read their own names”,“identify the first letter of their name”, “write theirname” for school entry. The milestones after 6 monthsat school also reflect this increased recognition with“know that sounds combine to form words”, “use theirdeveloping phoneme awareness to orally blend somephonemes”, “decode simple, regular words” and “en-code some simple, regular words.”

Although these skills and types of knowledge arenecessarily brief in the curriculum document, thesehave been extended through the development of lit-eracy learning progressions (Ministry of Education,2007a). The development of literacy learning progres-sions (Ministry of Education, 2007a) provides literacymilestones that are expected of children after 1 year atschool and so on. The literacy progressions are basedon a model that assumes three aspects to literacy acqui-sition: the first is the ‘learning of the code’; the secondis to make meaning and the third is to think critically.These are also outlined in the Effective Literacy Practicehandbooks (Ministry of Education, 2003a, 2006).

In the draft of these progressions (Ministry of Educa-tion, 2007a), there was also a set of progressions forschool entry and 6 months after starting school. De-spite strong support for the school entry and 6-monthprogressions by teachers who responded to the surveyabout the draft progressions (Ministry of Education,2010a), the Ministry dropped these progressions fol-lowing feedback from early childhood representativesthat these were incompatible with the aspirations of TeWhariki (Ministry of Education, 2010a). Given that theearly childhood sector was not deliberately targetedfor consultation, the reasoning for dropping the schoolentry progressions was puzzling, as they simply gaveindications of the types of literacy knowledge and abil-ities that most children would display on school entry,rather than measurement of these.

How well: the question of standards

As the previous section indicated, there is indica-tion of ‘what’ the government expects children to beable to do in early childhood and the junior school,but arguably less information about ‘how well’ chil-dren are doing. There is some evidence from inter-national studies with older children that give some

insights into whether New Zealand has met the bench-marked international standards of literacy achieve-ment that it aspired to, but nothing with youngchildren.

In 2001, New Zealand participated in the “Progressin International Reading Literacy Study” (PIRLS-01),which tests two areas of reading: reading for literarypurposes; and reading for intentional purposes. Al-though New Zealand’s score for Year 5 students washigher than the international average (529 vs 500),there was a wide spread of literacy achievement. Sev-enteen per cent of children scored above the 90th per-centile (615), but of concern were the 16 per cent of chil-dren who did not reach the lower quarter percentile of435. Girls scored better than boys (542 vs 516), acrossall ethnic groups, while NZ European scored higherthan Maori or Pasifika children.

In 2005, 6, 200 New Zealand Year 5 children partic-ipated in the PIRLS-05/06. The results indicate thatthere were no significant changes in the mean achieve-ment of children since 2001, despite heavy investmentin promoting literacy achievement. New Zealand stillhad the largest gender difference in achievement ofany country, with girls’ achievement higher than boys,but no significant change in mean achievement since2001. Of interest is that the 75th percentile was stillhigh at 592, while of concern was the 25th percentile at478, indicating over a quarter of children were belowthe international benchmark for reading achievement(Chamberlain, 2007).

Of further interest is New Zealand’s ranking at 24thof the 40 countries for literacy achievement. The high-est ranked countries include Eastern Europe, Asia,Canada, Italy, Western Europe and Scandinavia. Theexplanation given for the highest ranked country, theRussian Federation, is that the number of years of pri-mary schooling had been increased from 3 to 4 years,so that children were starting school at 6 (Mullis et al.,2007). That this made a difference to overall achieve-ment makes New Zealand’s scores even more puz-zling, given that New Zealand children have had 4.5–5.5 years of schooling by the time they take the PIRLStest. Clearly factors other than time are issues in NewZealand.

Similarly, in the “Progress for International StudentAssessment” (PISA) study with older children (OECD,2004, 2007), New Zealand’s distribution of readingscores was larger than all but a few of the partici-pating countries. In each study, the majority of poorreaders were from low-income backgrounds, with anover-representation of Maori children. New Zealandparticipated in PISA in late 2009 and in PIRLS in late2010.

These results do not suggest that the Ministry achievedits objective of having every 9-year-old child readingand writing for success, suggesting that the strategies



that should have benefited struggling readers have notbeen successful. This evidence is not surprising, givenTunmer et al.’s (2006) longitudinal study, which foundthat literate cultural capital at school entry in NewZealand predicted reading achievement 7 years later.This suggests that if children were identified and re-ceived greater assistance earlier, the outcomes may bebetter. This supports the arguments made by Pearsonand Hiebert (2010) and Allington (2010) about the ben-efits of early intervention.

Assessment issues: what and how well?

Complicating the issues of ‘read what’ and ‘how well’are the assessment tools that teachers have to de-termine if children are making progress in terms ofliteracy acquisition. The first assessment tool for earlyliteracy was introduced in 1997. The Ministry of Ed-ucation developed the SEA tools for the purpose ofassessing literacy and numeracy skills on school en-try. This assessment is nationally standardised and de-signed for use with children within their first 8 weeksat school. SEA has three separate components:

� a reading task based on Concepts about Print (devel-oped by Marie Clay);

� a numeracy assessment using a supermarket game –Checkout (developed by Jenny Young-Loveridge);and

� a story retelling task – Tell Me (developed by StuartMcNaughton).

The purpose of the SEA was to provide data to beused by teachers to improve student learning and byschools to evaluate learning programmes. The school’scollection of SEA data was to contribute to a nationalpicture of the literacy and numeracy skills school en-trants demonstrate. An evaluation of SEA (Andersonet al., 2004) identified problems with the literacy tasksincluded in the assessment kit: primarily the reliabil-ity of the Tell Me task; and that the tasks did notcomprehensively assess the skills and knowledge thatare required for the effective development of liter-acy and numeracy (Anderson et al., 2004). Further-more, Dewar and Telford’s (2003) review of SEA foundthat the kit was not used by 28 per cent of schoolsand only 31 per cent of schools returned summarydata to the Ministry of Education, suggesting its use-fulness for improving student learning, school pro-gramme evaluation or national policy analysis waslimited. They also found that teachers did not useall of the tools and felt all tools needed modifica-tion. Despite the critiques, the role of SEA as an ini-tial screening tool for children’s literacy has remainedunchallenged as the only national screening tool avail-able to new entrant teachers. The difficulties with thetasks have not been addressed, or made known tothose who use it (see Ministry of Education, 2010b).Assessment of children’s literacy thus only beginsformally at 6, when achievement of national standardsis assessed.

In the early childhood education sector the predom-inant framework used for assessment is Kei tua o tepae (Ministry of Education, 2005), which is a narra-tive framework that is used for assessing literacy, us-ing ‘Learning stories’ (Carr, 2001). Drummond’s (1993)definition of assessment is used for shaping the waysin which early childhood educators are encouraged toassess children’s learning:

“(the) ways in which, in our everyday practice, we (chil-dren, families, teachers, and others) observe children’slearning (notice), strive to understand it (recognise) andthen put our understanding to good use (respond)” (citedin Ministry of Education, 2005, p. 6).

Kei tua o te pae also stresses that “assessment for learn-ing implies that we have some clear aims or goalsfor children’s learning” (Ministry of Education, 2005,Book 1, p. 9) and states that Te Whariki provides theframework for defining learning and for what is tobe learned. Although Kei tua o te pae addresses ‘how’teachers should assess, apart from referring teachersback to Te Whariki, it does not address the issue of‘what’ to assess (Blaiklock, 2008; McLachlan, 2008). Keitua o te pae also advises teachers to monitor children’slearning dispositions, drawing on Carr’s (2001) workand urges teachers to make sure that assessment noteswhat children can do when they are ‘at their best’ (Min-istry of Education, 2005, p. 18).

Nuttall (2005) argues that there is evidence from Keitua o te pae (Ministry of Education, 2005) that teach-ers are overlooking children’s literacy practices in theirlearning stories, instead interpreting their observationsin terms of dispositions such as collaboration and ex-ploration. Blaiklock (2008) also critiques the ‘learn-ing stories’ narrative format that is used in Kei tuao te pae, arguing that it is a problematic form of as-sessment, particularly for literacy, and that it has notyet been established if learning stories are an effec-tive, valid, reliable and practical means of assessingand enhancing children’s learning. A recent reviewby the Education Review Office (ERO, 2007) on as-sessment found that teachers persist in having diffi-culties with using the learning story framework, de-spite the professional development funds and the Keitua o te pae resources (Ministry of Education, 2005).The review also found that although most centresused the learning story framework, approximatelyone-quarter were using it poorly as an assessmenttool.

More recent early childhood assessment exemplars onliteracy specifically in Kei tua o te pae (Ministry of Ed-ucation, 2009b) give educators some further guidanceon promoting and assessing literacy. Literacy is de-fined as a repertoire of oral, visual and written prac-tices, including:

� observing and listening in (e.g. listening to stories,making a shopping list);



� playing with symbol systems and technologies (e.g.playing with letters or sounds or making marks);

� using the symbol systems and technologies for apurpose (e.g. concepts of print, letter–sound rela-tionships or retelling poems);

� critically questioning or transforming (e.g. oral, vi-sual and written accounts or questioning conven-tions).

Although there is nothing really wrong with thesenew exemplars for literacy, the documents are heav-ily biased towards social practice definitions of liter-acy, such as those by Luke (1997) or the New LondonGroup (1996) and do not take full account of the psy-cholinguistic aspects of literacy acquisition. Evidence-based syntheses on literacy, such as the NELP report(2008), are not cited. A more comprehensive view of lit-eracy embraces both perspectives, so that teachers canmore readily identify children’s acquisition of essen-tial literacy knowledge, abilities and skills (Cunning-ham et al., 2009; Makin et al., 2007), as well as under-standing the social and cultural literacy capital theybring to early childhood settings. These exemplarscan be critiqued, as others have been (Blaiklock, 2008;McLachlan, 2008; Nuttall, 2005), for being short onspecifics of what teachers should be assessing in termsof literacy achievement.

In addition, as research in this country has shown thatearly childhood teachers have limited understandingsof how to promote literacy (Foote et al., 2004; Hedges,2003; McLachlan et al., 2006), the lack of specific guid-ance on what to assess is of considerable concern.Professional development offers some potential solu-tions, as research by McNaughton and colleagues inSouth Auckland (Phillips et al., 2001; Tagoilelagi-Leotaet al., 2005) has shown that with intensive professionaldevelopment, early childhood and primary teacherscan increase their knowledge of literacy acquisitionand enhance literacy outcomes for Maori and Pasifikastudents.

A recent ERO review on literacy (2011) provides in-sight into how effective teachers are being in makingsense of the guidance currently available on literacyin early childhood settings. The review states that al-though there is guidance available on effective liter-acy teaching and learning in early childhood, there isno specific guidance on literacy aligned to Te Wharikiand what is available is not in an easily interpretedframework that is accessible to educators. In the re-view of 353 early childhood services in the fourthquarter of 2009, it was identified that although mostservices provided an appropriate range of literacy op-portunities for children, a number of concerns wereidentified regarding the use of commercial phonicspackages with very young children, large formal mattimes that did not cater to the diverse abilities of chil-dren, and formal and teacher-led literacy teaching,which limited children’s engagement with meaningfulliteracy activities. ERO recommended to the Ministry

of Education that written guidelines and expectationsfor literacy teaching and learning in early childhood bedeveloped.

Assessment of children’s developing literacy before,during and after school entry is clearly an issue thatneeds attention, although this is problematic for teach-ers given the vagueness of the curriculum document,the lack of guidance on what to assess, the difficul-ties with SEA tools, the lack of alignment between re-sources and the notion that children should only beassessed when they are ‘at their best’.

Societal literacy: recent aspirationsof government

A change of government in 2008 led to some quite sig-nificant shifts in uses of Vote Education funds, with anincreased focus on participation in early childhood anda stronger focus on literacy and numeracy in primary,particularly for Maori, Pasifika and children with spe-cial needs. These shifts reflect Olson’s (2009) state-ments about governments promoting ‘societal liter-acy’ and children gaining the skills required for socialparticipation.

In the 2009 budget, funding was provided for the rollout of National Standards for reading, writing andmathematics in the primary sector. The standards forreading and writing were developed from the literacylearning progressions, with the standard for each yearof school or each year level, being based on the ulti-mate goal of reading, that is, reading for meaning. Aswith the final version of the Literacy Learning Progres-sions there are no standards for the first 6 months ofschool (Ministry of Education, 2008).

The Ministry of Education has also been well awareof the achievement gap highlighted by the PIRLS andPISA studies, but also educational outcomes more gen-erally. As a result, the Maori education strategy, KaHikitia (Ministry of Education, 2009a) was developed.One of the strategy focus areas is in the FoundationYears, drawing together early childhood and the first3 years of school into one area. The emphasis in thisarea is on participation in early childhood education,transitions to school, partnerships between home andschool and improving teaching and learning of liter-acy for Maori students, although the strategy is shorton specifics of how these will be achieved.

The Ministry of Education has also highlighted liter-acy as a focus of professional development in earlychildhood education, stating that “literacy and numer-acy skills are the foundation for continuing learning,and provide access to other parts of the curriculum”(Ministry of Education, 2009b, p. 8). A literature re-view funded by the Ministry in 2008 had identifiedthat good quality literacy teaching practices in early



childhood services contributed to later literacy suc-cess (Mitchell et al., 2008). This government’s focushas been accompanied by significant cuts in fundingto early childhood in the 2009 and 2010 budgets, withcuts to funding for early childhood research, percent-ages of qualified teachers in centres, qualifications ofstaff, professional development and teacher registra-tion. What is quite clear is that the Ministry of Edu-cation has shifted funds in early childhood and juniorschooling to targeted children in low socio-economicareas, which tend to be where Maori and Pasifika chil-dren live, with a strong focus on literacy and numer-acy, and the accountability of teachers for ensuring thatdesired literacy outcomes are achieved.

Conclusion

What this brief review suggests is that although theNew Zealand government has poured considerablefunds into improving literacy achievement for chil-dren in primary school, there are still significant gapsin terms of literacy policy for the Early Years, whichshould underpin this goal. In the primary sector, pol-icy has moved towards a ‘how well’ approach, us-ing national standards from 6 years of age and in-ternational benchmarking of reading achievement. Inearly childhood, only selected aspects of ‘read what’are addressed, while ‘how well’ is not addressed atall until children are 6 years of age. Arguably, therehas not been a coherent policy for promoting liter-acy in young children in this country, which may ac-count for some of the diversity of practice (ERO, 2011)that has been documented. Recent shifts in govern-ment funding indicate that the government is movingtowards targeting specific ethnic groups and commu-nities, rather than providing support for all childrenor addressing the issues of whether teachers have ad-equate knowledge of literacy and effective pedagogies(McGill-Franzen, 2010).

Potentially, a more coherent policy, a revised curricu-lum framework and a set of assessment resourcesfor the Early Years would aid children’s transition toschool and acquisition of literacy. The next step for-ward in literacy policy requires the understanding thatliteracy is jointly the development of both the cognitiveskills required for the act of making sense of the sym-bols on a page and transforming that into meaning, aswell as the act of understanding the social and culturalpractices that surround literacy.

It can be argued that any new policy focus is un-likely to be successful unless the government in-cludes some of the international indicators of whata coherent literacy policy should include (Allington,2010; McGill-Franzen, 2010; Olson, 2009; Pearson andHiebert, 2010): a focus on the known predictors ofliteracy achievement; the use of proven early inter-vention programmes in homes and schools; the ev-idence from longitudinal studies; the upskilling of

teachers; and the development of curriculum and as-sessment resources that support teachers in their role.More than a decade has passed since New Zealandlast looked intensively at its literacy policy; a closerlook is again warranted to determine a more inte-grated and inclusive approach to literacy in the EarlyYears.

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CONTACT THE AUTHORSClaire McLachlan and Alison Arrow, MasseyUniversity College of Education, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, 4410, New Zealand.e-mail: [email protected];[email protected]


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