Background

The government’s Literacy and Numeracy Strategy

Although most New Zealand children do well at reading, writing, and mathematics, there is evidence that some do not.  Of special concern are a wide gap between the highest and lowest levels of reading achievement and significant differences in performance in all areas between particular groups of children.  With the objective of raising overall achievement, particularly in maths, and closing the gap between the lowest and highest achievers, particularly in reading, the Government has adopted the following goal:

“By 2005, every child turning nine will be able to read, write, and do maths for success.”

Student achievement is influenced by personal, cultural, family, and school factors.  Feelings of personal success and capability, as well as personal interests and liking for a subject, have a strong bearing on progress and learning outcomes.  The expectations and support of people who matter in their lives and their opportunities and experiences both in and out of school are also important influences on children’s achievement.  Finally, the quality of the curriculum – its content, design, and the way in which it is taught and monitored – is also a significant influence on children’s achievement.

Success in learning is most likely when effective teaching practices and an appropriate curriculum encourage and build on the learner’s motivation and interest.  Both learner interest and an appropriate curriculum are informed and complemented by good communication between home and school and by shared understandings and expectations of goals.  Achieving ongoing improvements in outcomes for all students depends on the involvement of parents, communities, early childhood education services, and schools, in addition to support and leadership from the Government.

The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy includes:

• ensuring that the goal for nine-year-olds is well understood in the education sector and by parents and the wider community;
• working out the most effective way to measure the progress of individuals and groups towards the goal;
• supporting the best possible teaching of all children;
• ensuring that government interventions to support children’s learning in literacy are as effective and efficient as possible;
• providing extra support for programmes through a special proposals pool;
• encouraging parents and the wider community to support children’s learning at school and in early childhood through a public information campaign.

The Literacy Taskforce

As a key input into the development of the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, the Government established the Literacy Taskforce to provide advice on how the goal should be defined, how progress towards it should be measured, and the ways in which literacy learning could best be supported.  The taskforce was asked to make specific recommendations to improve teaching and learning for children in their first four years at school, to identify those aspects of current practice that need affirming or reinforcing, and to indicate programmes or practices that need reviewing.

Because the development of literacy is a fundamental role of schools, the Minister of Education wanted the taskforce to comprise mostly principals or teachers who are working successfully with those children considered most at risk of failure.  Appendix A sets out a full list of the Literacy Taskforce members and their initial terms of reference.

A sub-group of the Maths and Science Taskforce was reconvened to provide advice on the mathematics part of the goal.  Their advice is reported separately.

The Literacy Experts Group

The Secretary for Education convened a ten-member Literacy Experts Group to provide the Literacy Taskforce with advice from theoretical and academic perspectives. A list of the members of this group is included in Appendix A.