Reaction to Select Committee report
In this blog post, Professor Emeritus, James Chapman, provides his response to the Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Petition of Amanda Drumm: Teach reading in school through explicit and systematic phonics. The report was published 26 November 2021. The petition was first presented to the Committee 8 June 2020. LLA made an oral submission in support of the petition on 12 May 2021.
Download pdf of this blog post: here.
Select Committee response to the petition
“We note that the petitioner is asking to make it a requirement that all teachers of children in years 0 and 1 be trained to teach reading using explicit and systematic phonics instruction. We are pleased that some schools use a structured literacy approach and some of us have witnessed it being successfully used. The ministry said that new, evidence-informed resources and professional learning development to support this kind of structured literacy approach are now widely available for schools to use. However, it is ultimately up to schools to decide how they teach the curriculum. We note the ongoing work to strengthen the teaching and learning of literacy. This includes the Better Start Literacy programme, a refreshed dyslexia learning guide, and the development of a literacy strategy. Other initiatives that were not mentioned in this report include the curriculum refresh and the Learning Support Action Plan.”
National Party view
“National Party members of the committee are not convinced that sufficient focus has been applied to this subject by the ministry. They are concerned that there is no consistency across schools as to how literacy is taught. In the absence of any consistent measures, it is difficult to accurately assess the effectiveness of different approaches. National Party members would like to see a more formal response from the ministry to the issues raised in the petition and a path to ensuring all schools effectively engage in the issues raised in it.”
Response to Report
by James Chapman
It was a positive move to carry over the Petition form the previous Parliament to the current Parliament. My understanding is that this does not always happen.
The reasons for the Petition are sound and based on contemporary scientific research relating to reading instruction and early reading acquisition. Congratulations to Amanda and LLA for the considered approach to this petition.
The Ministry of Education (MoE) is correct in stating that they have no power to compel schools to adopt any particular pedagogical approach. However, this position (one Bill Tunmer & I have heard over many years) side-steps the fact that MoE instructional guidelines have an enormous influence on teaching practices and on how initial teacher education programmes in education colleges/faculties are taught. Effective literacy practices Years 1 to 4 is based on a multiple-cues approach to literacy instruction and learning and is woefully out of date. The MoE states in its response that instructional guidelines have been updated. I’m not aware of this but if they have been updated, they will likely have little impact unless Effective literacy practices is, either withdrawn, or significantly updated and launched with appropriate messaging.
The MoE is reported as stating that “multi-component, differentiated instruction” is best. While the Early Literacy Project at Massey recommended differentiated instruction in our report, it’s unclear what is intended with the term multi-component instruction. It could well refer to the so-called balanced instruction that sounds good but is essentially whole language with phonics clip-ons.
McNaughton, in his role as Chief Science Advisor to the MoE is reported as arguing that a combination of approaches is best. The research evidence does not necessarily support this. As pointed out in the petition, systematic phonics has been shown to be essential for some literacy learners, and beneficial for most/all. Differentiated instructional approaches ideally indicate how much systematic phonics instruction should occur for each child, and when young children can be moved on to focus on other aspects of literacy once word decoding skills are firmly established (see Arrow, Chapman & Greaney; Meeting the needs of beginning readers through differentiated instruction; in Tunmer & Chapman, Excellence & equity in literacy instruction: The case of New Zealand, 2015, Palgrave Macmillan).
McNaughton correctly notes that many schools use phonics, but teachers lack knowledge of the language constructs needed to teach phonics systematically. I think his view is based on the Massey research on schools’ use of phonics (Chapman et al., 2018, Teachers’ use of phonics, knowledge of language constructs, and preferred word identification prompts in relation to beginning readers. Aust Jnl of LD: doi=10.1080/19404158.2018.1467937). No clear suggestion appears to have been made by McNaughton as to how teachers might be assisted to overcome this lack of knowledge, given that fairly large numbers of schools/teachers seem to want to improve literacy teaching and literacy learning outcomes by virtue of using a phonics programme. Also, noted in that research article is the finding that over 50 named phonics programmes appear to be in use in A/NZ schools. This is ridiculous! Not all programmes have a good research basis. There is scope for the MoE to exercise leadership here, and McNaughton, as science adviser, might have mentioned which programmes have a sound theoretical and research basis.
The MoE’s reported comments about Reading Recovery (RR) misrepresent extensive research in A/NZ and overseas on the shortcomings of RR. At best, RR in A/NZ might be effective for less than 50% of students who either enter the programme or who are not placed in the programme because teachers don’t believe (often correctly) that it would be beneficial. The “success” statistics overlook the early drop-out rate from RR, children denied entry to the programme, and that children who are initially successful (discontinued) but who later significantly lose the gains (see Chapman & Tunmer, A Review of Reading Recovery for Those Who Most Need Early Literacy Supports; Perspectives on Language and Literacy, Winter, 2020). Reference to the US study on RR misrepresents the findings, given that only 53% of students were discontinued, and that a number (unknown number) of students were not admitted into the programme because schools believed they wouldn’t benefit. This study has been criticised for significant flaws (see Chapman & Tunmer, Is Reading Recovery an Effective Intervention for Students with Reading Difficulties? A Critique of the i3 Scale-Up Study, Reading Psychology, 2016: doi=10.1080/02702711.2016.1157538).
The comments regarding the National Party views are interesting. I don’t take political party positions when it comes to educational research. I note, however, that following meetings with numerous ministers of education from both main political parties, little action by way of leadership has been taken to seriously address the literacy learning problems facing many A/NZ children, especially those form Māori and Pacific backgrounds. The issues facing us have transcended political party politics—which may be a good thing! But compare this to much more leadership energy shown by the current federal education minister in Australia, who is working hard to improve literacy teaching and learning in Australian schools.
Overall, the MoE is attempting to make significant changes, but the pace is slow. This might be due to fear of push-back from entrenched interests in the education sector, including some educational colleges/faculties. Pushing up against the current socio-cultural pedagogical zeitgeist in the literacy area is tough and I guess the MoE would rather not be involved in that argument. It should be.
Petitions are worthwhile in drawing attention to important issues, but seldom acted on in meaningful ways. Bill Tunmer and I have tried all sorts of ways to get change since the early 1990s, including submissions to parliamentary select committees. We concluded that grass roots changes are likely to be more effective given political reticence. In this regard, LLA is well positioned to continue its work, while also continuing its advocacy with the MoE and others.
School principals who have adopted a structured literacy approach might consider banding together and working on education colleges to better prepare beginning teachers and working on the MoE (and NZEI) to lead changes in a more vigorous manner!
Despite my reservations, Amanda’s petition was very good, and it was a worthwhile undertaking. LLA weighing in was also worthwhile.
Declaration of Interest. I was co-principal investigator for the Massey Early Literacy Project, and I am currently on the Advisory Board for the Better Start Literacy Approach project funded by the MoE.