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RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Literacy experts say no problem with Māori words in book for learner readers
Te Aro School teacher Serah Mehrtens reads 'At the Marae' to her class. She says her pupils have not struggled with Māori words in the book. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen Literacy experts are challenging the Education Ministry's decision to discontinue a junior reading book that contains six Māori words . The ministry said it would not reprint 'At the Marae' in its small book or 'reader' version because it included a higher number of Māori words, "which present decoding challenges within the phonics sequence used in the series". "The primary challenge lies in the multisyllabic nature of many kupu Māori (e.g., karakia, wharenui), which have not yet been introduced at this stage of the series. Additionally, vowel sounds in these words differ from those specifically taught at this point, making them difficult for early readers to decode," it said. The ministry said the book would be reprinted in a large format for teachers to read with their classes. It said other books in the Ready to Read Phonics Plus series had Māori words and would continue to be printed as readers. "Given the high proportion of non-decodable words, At the Marae is best suited for shared reading. This informed the Ministry's decision to reprint it as a big book, supported by updated and expanded teacher guidance to ensure it continues to be a valuable resource in the classroom." The book's author, University of Canterbury senior lecturer in Māori education Jen Smith, said she was incredibly sad and disappointed because she wanted Māori children to see their culture reflected in their readers. "Te reo Māori was absent from my own literacy learning," she said. "And so I was thinking about all of the children that we've got out there, even though they're not learning in te reo Māori, still have a really unique relationship with it." The book was one of more than 75 in a series written specifically to help children learn to read through structured literacy - a sequential approach focused on matching sounds and letters. The books were written in tandem with Better Start, a structured literacy approach developed by Canterbury University and used by 1000 New Zealand schools Better Start's founder Gail Gillon said discontinuing the reader version of 'At the Marae' was a "very odd decision". "There's absolutely no evidence to suggest children are finding this reader confusing. And in fact, our data would suggest the opposite," she said. Professor Gillon said the reader's focus was on words with "st" such as stuck and step and while it had a few more Māori words than other readers, that should not present any problems. "There's absolutely no evidence that by introducing two or three more kupu Māori that reader is confusing children." Professor Gillon said it was important children saw themselves and their cultures in the readers. "It's just one reader within the series, and I think it would be a shame to to pull it from print. I know they're looking to keep it as a large picture book, but it's also really important that children are taking these little readers home and reading with their whanau," she said. University of Waikato linguistics senior lecturer Julie Barbour said Māori's writing system was one of the least problematic of any language. "There's nearly a perfect one-to-one relationship between sounds of speech and letters which are used to represent those sounds," she said. "So when children are being taught to decode words sound by sound, te reo Māori is not going to cause problems for those children because there is a consistent regular pattern of one symbol reflecting one speech sound." Barbour said the five Māori vowels matched five of the 12 English vowel sounds so that should not confuse children either. She said children already knew the Māori words in the reader such as kai and whare and it was appropriate they learned to read them. Barbour said close to one-fifth of the population identified as Māori and generations of Māori had been denied access to their language. "So having children's books that have a sprinkling of kupu Māori is really the entry point for servicing any kind of education system for Māori children, so absolutely from the outset we need Māori words," she said. Jennie Watts from structured literacy advocates, Lifting Literacy Aotearoa, said te reo was important. She said teachers needed to prepare learner readers for words in Māori. "It's important that the proportion of te reo Māori words that do turn up on the page is managed carefully so that the words can be taught first or children can be exposed to those words prior to being required to read the text themselves," she said. Watts said books with a higher proportion of Māori words had a higher "cognitive load", meaning learners would find them more complicated. She said children could cope with a small number of "non-decodable" words if they were explicitly taught about them beforehand. "It's the skill of the teacher that is crucial here. Highly-skilled teachers can deliver the right texts at the right time for maximum effect." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Auckland teacher 'not surprised' at increasing rate of teens leaving school unqualified
Principal of Papakura high Simon Craggs. Photo: RNZ / Luka Forman An Auckland secondary school teacher says he is not surprised by the increasing rate of teenagers leaving high school with no qualifications, and does not anticipate the situation improving. Of last year's school-leavers, 16 percent had no qualifications, the highest figure in a decade . It equates to about 10,600 teenagers, and is 0.4 of a percentage point more than the previous year and about six percentage points higher than the 10-11 percent recorded in the years prior to the start of the pandemic. The percentage of school leavers with no NCEA certificate has been rising since 2020, a trend teachers blamed on the after-effects of Covid-19 lockdowns combined with high employment prompting more young people to leave school earlier than they otherwise would. Papakura High School principal Simon Craggs told Morning Report changes to literacy and numeracy standards were restricting students. "It's not really a surprise to me," he said. "Since they changed the literacy and numeracy requirements that more and more students, particularly from low socio-economic backgrounds, ESOL backgrounds, Maori and Pasifika, weren't going to be able to access qualifications." The Education Ministry's figures showed 13 percent of last year's leavers had not reached the literacy and numeracy benchmark compared to about 10 percent under the previous requirement in pre-pandemic years. The figures showed 81 percent of last year's leavers had stayed at school until the age of 17 or beyond, up from 79 percent the previous year with bigger increases in retention at schools in poorer communities. Craggs said the revised criteria for the co-requisite tests, known as common assessment activities (CAAs), had "restricted students". "There are other factors involved, but I would say it's 90 percent due to the new CAA tests in particular," he said. "The problem I have with that is not that we're trying to strengthen literacy and numeracy, the problem is the test itself is very narrow. "It's not actually measuring functional literacy and numeracy." Māori had the worst results - 28 percent left with no qualification last year, compared with 19 percent of Pacific leavers and 14 percent of European/Pākehā leavers. Papakura High School had scrapped NCEA level 1, instead opting for a two-year level 2 programme. "[Level 1] was too hard for our students to do the co-requisite, get their literacy and numeracy, and get 60 credits," Craggs said. However because students had to stay longer at school to earn a qualification, a higher number of unqualified students would drop out, he said. A tight labour market was also limiting the options for young people. "That's another scary thing," Craggs said. "A lot of them aren't going into quality employment. They are going into employment, but it's casual, reduced hours, take what you get sort of thing. It's very difficult for them to be accessing quality employment. "Maybe three or four years ago they could go into a good full-time job, and build a career from that. They're not able to do that at the moment." Training programmes such as People Potential were proving to be a viable alternative for young people, although spots were tight. Craggs said he did not believe an overhaul of NCEA would lead to declining rates of unqualified school leavers. "If we were looking at making some tweaks to NCEA, making it a better qualification, making the literacy and numeracy requirement more [functional] then we might have some more optimism for the future. "I'm not sure that just dumping NCEA and creating a new qualification which is subject-based is necessarily going to make a big difference to those students." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Conservation funding dries up, threatening Waikato bird-protection projects
Left to right, Maryann Eason, Jude Tisdall, Tiaki Ormsby, Janet Leggett, Nardene Berry, and Jo Wrigley at Eason's farm homestead, with Maungatautari Sanctuary Mountain behind. Photo: RNZ/Libby Kirkby-McLeod Maryann Eason's Maungatautari farm homestead was on the edge of 'Bush to Burbs', a project to protect bird spillover from the Maungatautari Sanctuary Mountain. "Hanging out in the magnolia tree was nine kaka and four bellbirds and two tuis, and there were fantails flying all around," she said of the birds she now saw on her property. Eason had planted more than 800,000 trees on the farm and, with the neighbouring property-owner, worked on pest-trapping for the area to protect birds that leave the inland fenced sanctuary at Maungatautari. 'Bush to Burbs' was one of several projects between Pirongia and Maungatautari, which aimed to bring back endangered species and provide safe corridors for animals to travel the 45km between the two mountains. Another project - Taiea te Taiao - also helped private landowners return a pest-free bird friendly habitat across the area. Nardene Berry from Landcare Trust said some native birds wouldn't cross more than three kilometres of pastureland. "What we are trying to do is create stepping stones for the birds to cross the landscape in a way that they can do so safely," she said. The benefits weren't just for the birds. "What people forget is that we are part of nature," Berry said. "Biodiversity is part of us and we are part of it, so having that in our backyards or close by on our farms is so vital for our wellbeing." Tiaki Ormsby from Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society said the group's Matariki event was a good example of the benefits to people connecting with natural places. The group took whanau onto parts of Pironga to walk in the steps of their ancestors and find out about the ecology on the mountain. "To be able to go back on our maunga in a safe way, it was quite magical," she said. However, Berry said keeping these and other projects in Waikato would become harder. Government funding had dried up and philanthropic investment in biodiversity had halved to only two percent over the last few years. "Sometimes, projects can get started, and they get some funding to get going and there's stuff behind that, but to keep it going, that's the hard part," she said. Go Eco was the environmental group behind the Bush to Burbs project and chief executive Jo Wrigley agreed funding was currently difficult. She said there was a cycle of government funding that enabled projects, but didn't continue to help maintain them. "Every government wants to see environmental projects scaled up, but the funding is not usually scaled up," she said. An example was the billion-dollar 'Jobs For Nature' project, which the government stopped funding in June. Jude Tisdall is a long-time volunteer for Waikato environmental groups in her area. She said some projects, like pest control in the Kaimai Range, occur on steep, dangerous country and really should be undertaken by professionals. Jobs for Nature trained people to do that work, but she said many were young people who needed paid employment and, when funding went, so did skilled workers . Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society helped with pest-trapping on Pirongia, where blue-wattled kōkako were returned in 2017. Janet Leggett, who wrote many of the society's funding applications, said the group also had the vision to see kiwi back on the mountain, but finding funding had been become harder and harder. "The pool is shrinking," she said. "Our major funding sources are the government-funding sources, but the Department of Conservation hasn't been able to fund us for the last two years." The group received funding from Waikato Regional Council and other groups, such as Lotteries, but Leggett said they received less than half of what they applied for. Not just new projects could be affected. Leggett feared the progress already been made to reduce pests could also be reversed. "It's not going to take long for things to regress, and the possum and rat numbers to build up, and the birdlife to be affected," she said. "It's at a point now where it's really critical." Wrigley said, as funding contracted, progress had to rely on other things. "The work is ultimately kept going through relationships between whanau, hapu and communities," she said. The vision for restoring nature in Waikato was big. These groups just hoped that austerity in the funding sector didn't set back the progress. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
