Call for literacy approach which saw dyslexic boy thrive

The mother of a son with dyslexia wants the literacy approach that has seen him make major progress implemented in all schools.

The Ministry of Education is reviewing how literacy is taught in New Zealand after announcing new strategies for maths and literacy and communication last month.

The ministry acknowledged the status quo is not working for all learners.

“I think I probably didn't notice for the first couple of years, I actually just thought as a working mum I wasn't doing enough homework with him... and I just thought we've got to practice more and we need to do all the exercises they give us, reading words,” Vanessa Morris said about 10-year-old Mac’s first years at school.

“By about year three, I thought he's just not picking it up and it was incredibly frustrating for him and he'd get angry and short fused at anything.

"I just thought that was his personality to be honest back then.”

After Mac’s teacher assessed him as performing okay in reading, Morris raised her concerns and Mac started the Government-funded Reading Recovery at school.

Morris thought that, along with Mac participating in reading sessions with a small group of students every day would “solve all our problems” but still the instruction “didn’t click” for him.

In 2020, chief education science advisor Professor Stuart McNaughton told 1News Reading Recovery “works moderately well on average but has issues".

“I'd be feeling frustrated, and he'd be trying his absolutely best and he's a real people pleaser so the frustration of not being able to do it and wanting to do it, knowing that others can do it was just really hard,” Morris said.

She talked to Mac’s teacher and was given a pamphlet for dyslexia and told to pursue it.

Morris paid $1000 for Mac to be assessed and the family found out he had dyslexia.

“I find if you have dyslexia, you have all these ideas but you just can't write them down and it's a bit harder to read,” Mac says.

The Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand says an estimated one in 10 New Zealanders have dyslexia.

Mac’s now been receiving private tutoring for two years using a structured literacy approach.

The explicitly ordered method for learning to read is vital for those with dyslexia, but beneficial for most students.

It includes phonics, which is sounding out the letters in words.

“In each book there would be two parts, two things that would really help you sound out,” Mac says.

The bribery to coax Mac to read and pain it caused him and the family is now over, Morris says.

“We're quite excited about the fact it's sinking in and then actually as he learns to be able to decode or read more words on the page, we know each lesson is actually unlocking something else so he'll be able to read more and more so that’s been really cool.”

Morris said she’d hate to think where the family would be without the tutoring, and finds it heart-breaking not all students in need can access it.

“The children are missing out on the ability to be taught how to read properly because they can't afford to fund it personally and that just seems atrocious in this day and age.”

Morris says while a balanced literacy approach works for most children, some like Mac are unable to learn to read through it, but a structured approach can work for all students.

“I definitely think we should be implementing that in all schools,” she said.

The Ministry of Education is currently planning how the evidence-based literacy teaching model will be devised and what the timeframe for the process will be.

“The literacy common practice model (CPM) needs to be built in collaboration with sector experts, and related agencies,” Ministry of Education curriculum associate deputy secretary Pauline Cleaver said in a statement.

“The underpinning work of developing the common practise model is to make sure the curriculum is clear on the learning and progression akonga (students) need to make at different stages of their learning,” she said.

Cleaver stated the model will fit the needs of all students, including those with extra learning needs.

Literacy expert and Better Start National Science Challenge Deputy Director Professor Gail Gillon said over the years, literacy in New Zealand has included a number of approaches that aren’t backed up by strong evidence.

“That really is disadvantaging our learners that need it the most,” she said.

Professor Gillon said a stronger focus on phonics is needed.

“We do have an example of a common practice model and what that might look like going forward. From last year the Government's been funding the Better Start Literacy Approach and that has now already been rolled out in over a third of all primary schools across the country,” she said.

The method involves a structured approach to phonics, spelling and building vocabulary and narration skills.

Gillon said new entrant and year one teachers regularly give feedback about the accelerating impact of the approach on student reading and writing skills.

Gillon said what makes the approach stand out is that evidence showing effectiveness has been carried out in New Zealand, rather than an approach being based on research from overseas education.

‘The Approach is underpinned by a strengths based culturally responsive approach to literacy teaching and focuses on engaging whānau in mana-enhancing ways in their children’s early literacy learning,” she said in an email.

Like New Zealand, Australia has also seen declines in student reading achievement in international tests.

New South Wales has introduced a new literacy syllabus with a greater emphasis on phonics.

The curriculum will be mandatory for schools to follow from next year.

“There'd be time for instruction in phonics but there'll also be time for looser, less explicit teaching where the children are learning to employ those skills in other domains so that’s what the hope is,” Primary English Teaching Association Australia president Professor Pauline Jones said.

“There’s a bit of a tension there in that you think about literature, you think about a whole range of texts that are read to children, that they join in reading, that they I guess employ more aesthetic uses of language where as in a decoding line of instruction, the children are more likely to be reading what we call decodable texts in which the language patterns are controlled.

“It can be quite thin gruel if that’s the only thing children are reading and encountering and it’s certainly not as engaging for many children,” she said.

The academic said the curriculum needs to respond to the needs of all children, including those that come to school already able to read.

Associate Professor Jones said the success of the NSW curriculum will be influenced by how much professional development teachers receive.

“I must say at the moment in New South Wales this year many schools are struggling with the effects of Covid and so I’m not sure those ones that are implementing the syllabus, how much time they’ve had to really do that just yet.”

She said phonics was fertile ground for politicians.

“Phonics, phonological awareness, word recognition, comprehension to an extent is very easily testable, other aspects of comprehension are less testable, they require time to develop and they’re highly contextualised, so I think for any politician to stand up and say, ‘we’ve improved this in reading, early reading,’ that’s a win and a quick one.”

“But also, there is evidence around that good, strong early reading skills count and make a difference,” she said.

Jones advised Ministry of Education officials to “allow some time” for devising the approach.

“What we find in Australia and in New South Wales is that these curriculum are produced in incredibly short time frames and I think that’s often to do with the election cycles so it takes quite some time to develop curriculum.”

She said teacher educators, teacher associations and literacy researchers need to be consulted.

“Given the nature of the English curriculum, that expertise needs to be fairly broad ranging.”

The academic said the texts people engage with these days are often not on paper and instead digital, image or animation based.

She said this is an issue curriculum makers need to focus on and that "a narrow focus on phonics doesn’t really let us get at".