Heather du Plessis-Allan: National's education policy could potentially be a game changer

If you are a parent or a grandparent worried about whether our schooling will teach your child to read properly – you need to listen to this.

Good education announcement from National today. I have been waiting for anyone to announce this for a couple of years now. So I'm pleased someone’s finally done it.

If the Nats win the election, they will require all primary schools to teach little ones to read using structured literacy – which is basically going back to phonics.

Now let me explain to you why this is potentially a game changer.

For the last 50 years, our schools have not been teaching phonics. They have been teaching what’s called whole language.

And basically what that does is assumes that kids will naturally learn to read just like they learn to talk.

If you leave books with pictures lying around for them and if the book has the word apple next to a picture of an apple – that will teach them to read.

It is rubbish. It does not.

It is such a fail that 36 percent of our 14-year-olds failed the NCEA pilot reading exam last year.

The reading ability of our 10-year-olds is the worst it’s ever been and is apparently the worst in the English-speaking world.

So what's been going on is that a lot of schools have been spending thousands of dollars of their own money to pay consultants to come in and help them teach in another way, which is called structured literacy. And as I say – basically goes back to phonics.

And they have been getting amazing results, the kids are learning to read again.

Here's an example:

Kaiapoi North School in Canterbury spent $20,000 and the principal said it was worth every cent.

After two years: the principal said 68 of their 72 kids learning it were at or above the curriculum standards and scoring not around 70 percent – but in the 90 percents.

The Education Ministry knows this.

There have been campaigns for years to get them to go back to phonics.

New South Wales has just gone back to phonics, and yet our Education Ministry has dragged their heels.

And now finally, the Nats have seen the light.

And they say if they win in October, teachers will all be teaching structured literacy to kids, and the way it’s phrased – they will not have the option of doing anything else.

There will be tests on Year 2s to make sure it’s working, and every new teacher will be taught it too.

And that is brilliant.

I tell you what this could be a game changer.

It could genuinely be the thing that lifts our reading rates again and turns our education system around, because if you can’t read... you can’t do any education.

Good, simple, practical announcement.

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