Holding feet to the fire

A key role for Lifting Literacy Aotearoa is to advocate for evidence-informed educational policy and to hold the Ministry and Government to account. In this blog post we recap our main advocacy efforts over the past year, and culminate with a letter we have just sent to Associate Minister for Education, Jan Tinetti and our Report Card of the government’s progress towards implementing the 16 recommendations we set out in our ‘Call to Action’ in July. Our hope is that the Government will adopt and implement these recommendations as part of its new Literacy Strategy. As you can see from the Report Card, there is a long way to go!

Our advocacy over 2021:

Our little team of volunteers has been quite busy this year to engage with policymakers and politicians to raise their awareness of the science of reading and structured literacy. This has included:

• Writing an opinion piece for the NZ Herald (January).

• Writing an open letter to the Ministry of Education in response to comments they made on TVNews Item on ‘balanced literacy’ (February).

• Surveying teachers and then compiling a report to provide feedback on the quality and effectiveness of the new Ministry funded Ready to Read Phonics Plus books (June). And then engaging with officials to talk them through the feedback.

• Organising visits with 6 schools (3 in Auckland and 3 in Christchurch) for Ministry of Education officials (June and August) and creating a series of Case Studies of schools’ structured literacy journey.

• Creating our own Literacy Strategy, termed our ‘Call to Action’ and sending that to Ministry of Education and other stakeholders (July).

• Organising visits to schools for 5 MPs to see structured literacy in action (July).

• Providing an oral submission in support of petition to Education and Workforce Select Committee for systematic synthetics phonics training for teachers (August).

• Publishing a position statement on Reading Recovery and sharing that with the Ministry of Education (August).

• Making a submission to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry, A Fair Chance for All (August).

• Meeting with Associate Minister for Education Jan Tinetti on Literacy Strategy (August).

• Surveying teachers and parents and then compiling a report on the impact literacy has on school attendance and engagement (September). We then presented this report to the Education and Workforce Select Committee.

• Meeting with Ministry of Education Officials to give input for Literacy Strategy (various meetings over the year).

• Putting on a series of free webinars to help teachers and parents understand in more detail how structured literacy can be used in different contexts (four held so far). These have had over 32,000 views collectively.

• Lining up various media coverage (TV, radio, print).

Letter to Associate Minister for Education:

Our most recent action has been to write a letter to the Associate Minister for Education, Jan Tinetti today. The letter is a follow up to a meeting we had with the Minister on 4 August on the Literacy Strategy. In the letter we set out our concern that the Literacy Strategy that will shortly be released will not be as tightly tied to the evidence base of the science of reading as it could be, and will not result in the improved literacy outcomes hoped for.

We signal five areas in particular that the Ministry need to get right if the Literacy Strategy is to be coherent, comprehensive, equitable and evidence-based. These are: 

• having independent structured literacy experts review the scope and sequence of the Ready to Read Phonics Plus books to insure these are decodable and inclusive resources; 

• reviewing the ongoing investment in the third party and proprietary Reading Recovery network and other Ministry funded literacy interventions compared to investing those funds in other initiatives that align with a structured literacy approach; 

• ensuring we do not neglect learners in Māori Medium or Pasifika language settings and funding structured literacy PLD and decodables for those teachers and schools; 

• funding a wider range of high quality structured literacy PLD for schools; and

• ensuring ITEs are preparing graduate teachers with the knowledge of the science of reading and structured literacy teaching practice.

These issues need careful examination and input from independent reading science experts.

Report Card:

To keep the pressure up we have also devised this Report Card where we set out our rating (out of 10) of the Government's current progress on doing what is needed to permanently and efficiently lift literacy for all by adhering to the findings from the Science of Reading. And what is still needed to improve their score. We will update and publish this quarterly.

What you can do:

It’s hard to tell what impact our advocacy is having, but we have noted a shift in the language used by the Ministry and Minister and we are hopeful that we are having some influence. But as a small team of volunteers there are limits to the depth and breadth of what we can do. So you can help by:

• making a donation to help us do more (there are many other stakeholders we would love to engage with) and possibly employ some part-time staff (donations over $5 are eligible for tax rebate);

• enquiring with us about volunteering your time and skills (we particularly need people with communications, policy, fundraising skills. But we are keen to hear from anyone who is keen to offer help);

• connecting us to philanthropists or others who might be able to provide us with more funding (we are particularly keen to get funding that we can use to help schools buy decodable books and fund PLD, including Te Reo Maori resources and funding for more video content);

• doing your own local advocacy (in your school or Kahui Ako, with your local library, with your local MP)

See our Take Action page for more details.