Literacy project gets good results
By Rebecca Fox
Significant improvements in children’s reading comprehension and writing have been recorded by a new literacy project.
The Ministry of Education project, which took place in 85 schools, including 12 in Otago and Southland, involved 1,183 teachers and 4,800 year one to eight pupils.
When releasing the figures from the Literacy Professional Development Project, Education Minister Steve Maharey said the results showed that with good support from literacy facilitators, teachers could make significant improvements to writing and reading comprehension for all pupils.
“The results from this project are hugely encouraging. As well as seeing improvements in literacy across all of the schools involved, we have seen the highest improvement among students that were previously the lowest achievers.”
The project involved placing professional facilitators in schools to help teachers develop literacy programmes tailored to the needs of their pupils.
“Our approach is about teachers to enhance their skills and develop programmes that meet the diverse needs of their students.”
Of the schools involved in the project, 45 focused on writing and 40 on reading comprehension.
One of the Dunedin schools to take part in the writing project was Liberton Christian School. Its literacy leader, Adele McKirdy, said the new strategies and approaches learnt as part of the project had definitely raised the level of writing.
There had been very exciting results, especially with children who did not think they could write because they were bad spellers, she said.
“It’s turned children who were not writers into very good writers. It has been a very enriching process.”
Jenny Harrex, one of the project’s three Otago facilitators, said children had become “pretty excited” about reading as a result of the work teachers were doing, which was all evidence-based.
It had also helped ensure pupils did not fall behind the norm and that they reached their potential.
The government invested about $32 million a year in programmes to lift literacy standards in schools, including $3.8 million a year for the Literacy Professional Development Programme.
The project will be extended to a further 172 schools over the next two years.
Otago Daily Times, April 1, 2006
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