The Government has announced that children in their first year of school will undergo phonics checks to help teachers understand their reading progress.
In May, Education Minister Erica Stanford revealed that starting term one next year, all Kiwi students will learn to read using the structured literacy approach — $67 million has been pledged for its rollout.
The approach teaches students to use sounds and phonics to understand words.
During a visit to Silverstream Primary School in Upper Hutt today, Stanford revealed that from 2025, all children would do phonics tests.
The tests would become compulsory in 2026.
Stanford said the checks are to “help teachers understand how well a child can read words by sounding out letters”.
They would be done after 20 weeks of schooling and then repeated after 40 weeks.
“It will help teachers identify and arrange additional support for those who need it right at the start of the child’s education,” Stanford said.
“At the earliest opportunity, parents deserve to know how their kids are progressing at school and have confidence they are moving in the right direction.”
The minister also confirmed that progression monitoring in reading, writing, and maths would be introduced for children between years 3 and 8.
These will be done through Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) and e-asTTle tests. The minister said around 90% of schools were already using some form of assessment.
Children would sit the assessments twice yearly to “inform teachers about the next steps needed for a child’s learning”.
Stanford said the tools’ design should stop teachers from only teaching to the test.
“There are tools where the teacher can set the test level so they’re meeting the level of the child,” she said.
“And e-asTTle, we chose it in particular because it provides really rich information about the next steps in learning.”
“Further work is being done to review the types of targeted and tailored support we make available for those who need additional help,” she said.
She also said the tools were designed to avoid “league tables” as schools compete for the best results.
“It’s not our intention to pit schools against each other,” Stanford said.
Tests ‘another backwards step’ for education – Labour
Labour’s education spokesperson Jan Tinetti called today’s announcement “another backwards step for education”.
“Erica Stanford is hellbent on a one-size-fits-all education system. National Standards have failed students before. Going back to standardised testing is taking us down the same path,” she said.
She said National “does not seem to have any care” for struggling students, highlighting the Government’s decision to scrap the Reading Recovery programme in May.
“Just making all students sit the same test to get aggregate data at an oversight level won’’ help the kids that are struggling.”
Tinetti said the policy would only work if “it’s followed through with interventions to pick up students who need a bit more help”.
“We have not heard from the Government its plan for making sure that happens, instead it has made cuts to intervention programmes and did not give learning support any additional funding in this year’s budget.”
She said she was worried the minister was going “too far too fast”, and said the curriculum should not be a political football “changed every three years”.
“Forcing children to do an hour each of reading, writing and maths every day isn’t going to make them enjoy it or learn better, and more intensive testing isn’t going to make school a place they want to be.
“It looks like another step by National to bring back its failed experiment of National Standards. It’s just buzz words and sound bites to paper over the cracks in Erica Standford’s and Christopher Luxon’s understanding of what is happening in our schools,” Tinetti said.