New Zealand

Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

The national curriculum is the official policy for teaching, learning, and assessment in New Zealand’s state and state integrated schools and comprises two documents. The New Zealand Curriculum, the guide for English medium teaching and learning, was introduced in late 2007 and fully implemented at the beginning of 2010. Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, the partner document for Māori medium teaching and learning, was introduced in late 2008 and fully implemented at the beginning of 2011.^t The two documents were developed independently and are not translations of each other. However, they share the same goals, with each document articulating a guiding vision for the educational outcomes for New Zealand’s learners followed by descriptions of the competencies and skills students from school entry through Year 13 need to develop. The documents also outline values and attitudes that schools are to encourage and model. Te Marautanga o Aotearoa additionally identifies the role of the Māori language in accessing Māori culture, the Māori world, and living confidently as Māori.

Both documents set out broad objectives for each learning area (subject) throughout eight progressive levels of achievement; there are no specific objectives for students at a particular year (grade) level. Each of Levels 1 to 5 equates to about two years of learning, and the higher levels—Levels 6 to 8—equate to about one year. Many students, however, do not fit this pattern of learning (e.g., students with special learning needs and those who are gifted). When implementing the curriculum, schools are expected to choose achievement objectives that meet the learning needs of individual students. The learning areas in the New Zealand Curriculum are: English, the Arts, Health and Physical Education, Learning Languages Mathematics and Statistics, Science, Social Sciences, and Technology. In Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, they are: Te Reo Māori, Pāngarau (mathematics), Pūtaiao (science), Hangarau (technology), Tikanga-ā-iwi (social science), Ngā Toi (the arts), Hauora (health and physical wellbeing), Te Reo Pākehā (English), and the optional learning strand of Ngā Reo (languages).

Reading Policy

Fundamental both to the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, literacy is viewed as crucial to meeting the reading and writing demands of all learning areas. For example, the New Zealand Curriculum acknowledges that for each learning area, students need to learn:²³

• The specialist vocabulary associated with the area
• How to read and understand its texts
• How to communicate knowledge and ideas in appropriate ways
• How to listen and read critically, assessing the value of what they hear and read

During 2010 and 2011, national standards for literacy and mathematics standards for each year of primary schooling (Years 1 to 8) were introduced into both English medium and Māori medium settings to concur with full implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, respectively.^u National Standards and Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori set out clear achievement expectations for reading, writing and mathematics (and speaking in Māori medium settings).

The New Zealand Curriculum Reading and Writing Standards for Years 1 to 8 (the literacy standards for English medium settings) address the overall purpose of reading and writing rather than students’ specific skills and knowledge. The main purpose of the standards is to provide reference points for teachers that describe students’ progress and achievement at each year level. To judge whether students are meeting a given standard, teachers must use a range of information on how well students read and write in all curriculum learning areas, not just within the English language learning area.

Three main aspects of literacy underpin the reading and writing standards: learning the code of written language, making meaning, and thinking critically. The reading standards mention each aspect specifically because students who are considered “successful” readers are expected to demonstrate all three across the curriculum.

Year 5, being the class level of interest in PIRLS, is regarded as a significant transition point for reading because students are expected to “step up” to read for learning by engaging with instructional materials from across the curriculum in addition to texts from their literacy program. The reading standard for Year 5 students in English medium settings thus reads:

“By the end of Year 5, students will read, respond to, and think critically about texts in order to meet the reading demands of the New Zealand Curriculum as they work towards Level 3. Students will locate, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas within and across a small range of texts appropriate to this level as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum.”²⁴

Associated with each reading standard are features of texts that students must read to meet the standard. At Year 5, for example, students are expected to be reading print and electronic fiction and nonfiction such as junior novels, information texts, or collections with the following features:²⁵

• More abstract ideas than texts used at earlier curriculum levels
• Ideas and information that are conveyed indirectly and require students to make inferences
• Information that is irrelevant to the identified purpose for reading, which students need to identify and reject
• Mixed text types
• Sentences that vary in length and structure
• A significant amount of unfamiliar vocabulary that is explained in the text
• Figurative or ambiguous language that the context helps students to understand
• Illustrations, photographs, text boxes, diagrams, maps, charts, and graphs

The national literacy standards for students learning in Māori medium settings are articulated in Te Marautanga o Aotearoa Whanaketanga Reo Kōrero, Pānui, Tuhituhi²⁶. Whereas the English medium standards are specifically linked to a year level, the pānui (reading) standards are described in relation to the curriculum levels of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, Ngā Kete Kōrero (a series of sequential readers developed for children from emerging to fluency stages when reading in te reo Māori), and reading material from across other curriculum areas. Specifically, the reading standard for Level 3 includes:²⁷

• Āheinga Reo (language functions)—The learner understands and analyzes the purposes of texts at mid-Pīngao (KPe) level and at Level 3 of the curriculum
• Puna Reo (linguistic features)—The learner understands and analyzes language features and structures in texts at mid-Pīngao (KPe) level and in texts used across the curriculum at Level 3
• Rautaki Reo (language strategies)—The learner analyzes and applies reading strategies in order to make meaning from texts at mid-Pīngao (KPe) level and from texts used across the curriculum at Level 3

Summary of National Curriculum

While the reading and writing national standards give explicit direction for literacy learning across the curriculum, the English and Māori language learning areas in the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMoA) provide the setting for most literacy instruction at the primary school level.

English is structured around two interconnected strands: Listening, Reading, and Viewing; and Speaking, Writing, and Presenting. Broad achievement objectives in each strand relate to:

• Text purposes and audiences
• Ideas within language contexts
• Language features that enhance text
• The structure and organization of texts

The achievement objectives are formulated to show the “ideal” progress students make as they move from Level 1 after two years of primary school to Level 8 at the end of secondary school. The expectation is that students will be at Level 4 at the end of primary school (Year 8). Specific indicators of success support each objective. Exhibit 2 provides a summary of the Ideas Within Language Contexts Achievement objectives along with some examples of indicators for meeting the objective.

Exhibit 2: Summary of The New Zealand Curriculum English Language Learning Area for Ideas Within Language Contexts Achievement Objectives²⁸

English Language Learning Area: Ideas Within Language Contexts
Level 1 Objective	Level 2 Objective	Level 3 Objective	Level 4 Objective
Students will recognize and identify ideas within and across texts	Students will show some understanding of ideas within, across, and beyond texts	Students will show a developing understanding of ideas within, across, and beyond texts	Students will show an increasing understanding of ideas within, across, and beyond texts
Some of the indicators that the objective has been achieved
Students: Understand that personal experience can influence the meaning gained from texts Make meaning of texts by identifying ideas in some texts	Students: Use their personal experience and world and literacy knowledge to make meaning from texts Make meaning of increasingly complex texts by identifying main ideas	Students: Use their personal experience and world and literacy knowledge confidently to make meaning from texts Make meaning of increasingly complex ideas by identifying main and subsidiary ideas in them Start to make connections by thinking about underlying ideas in and between texts	Students: Make meaning of increasingly complex texts by identifying and understanding main and subsidiary ideas and the links between them Make connections by thinking about underlying ideas within and between texts from a range of contexts Make and support inferences from texts with increasing independence

Underpinning the knowledge, skills, and understandings are processes and strategies demonstrated by students that highlight the learning progression, as Exhibit 3 shows.

Exhibit 3: Summary of The New Zealand Curriculum English Language Learning Area: Processes and Strategies

English Language Learning Area: Processes and Strategies
Level 1 Objective	Level 2 Objective	Level 3 Objective	Level 4 Objective
Students will acquire and begin to use sources of information, processes, and strategies to identify, form, and express ideas	Students select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies with some confidence to identify, form, and express ideas	Students will integrate sources of information, processes, and strategies with developing confidence to identify, form, and express ideas	Students will integrate sources of information, processes, and strategies confidently to identify, form, and express ideas
Some of the indicators that the objective has been achieved
Students: Have an awareness of the connections between oral, written, and visual language Use sources of information (meaning, structure, visual, and graphophonic information) and prior knowledge to make sense of a range of texts Associate sounds with letter clusters as well as individual letters; use processing and some comprehension strategies with some confidence Are developing the ability to think critically about text	Students: Recognize connections between oral, written, and visual language Select and use sources of information (meaning, structure, visual and graphophonic information) and prior knowledge with growing confidence to make sense of increasingly varied and complex texts Use an increasing knowledge of letter clusters, affixes, roots, and compound ords to confirm prediction Select and use processing and an increasing range of comprehension strategies with some understanding and confidence Think critically about texts with some confidence	Students: Recognize and understand the connections between oral, written, and visual language Integrate sources of information and prior knowledge with developing confidence to make sense of more complex texts Select and use a range of processing and comprehension strategies with growing understanding and confidence Think critically about texts with developing confidence	Students: Recognize and understand the connections between oral, written, and visual language Integrate sources of information and prior knowledge confidently to make sense of increasingly varied and complex texts Select and use appropriate processing and comprehension strategies with increasing understanding and confidence Think critically about texts with increasing understanding and confidence

The indicators of progression are further elaborated upon in Literacy Learning Progressions and the (online) Learning Progression Frameworks, professional tools for teachers to support the implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum. Similar to the national standards for reading and writing, Literacy Learning Progressions, for example, describe the progression from one schooling year to the next (e.g., Year 5 to 6), by alerting teachers to what students need to know and should be able to do at each year level if they are to engage with the texts and tasks from across the curriculum.^29,30

In Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, the Māori language learning area is structured around three strands: ā-Waha (Oral), ā-Tā (Written), and ā-Tinana (Body/Paralinguistic Language). Three overarching aims, as described for the reading standards, interweave across the three strands: Āheinga Reo (language functions, or the purposes for which language is used and understanding reasons for exchanging ideas); Puna Reo (language knowledge, or the expansion and use of vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and phraseology); and Rautaki Reo (language strategies).

Because of the wide range of Māori language proficiency among children entering immersion settings, four proficiency levels at curriculum Level 1 are used to evaluate the appropriate starting point for each learner. Exhibit 4 shows the literacy characteristics of students at Level 1 and an overview of the progression to fluency at Level 4.

Exhibit 4: Summary of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa Māori Language Learning Area (English language version)³¹

TMoA Māori Language Learning Area Learner Characteristics at the Beginning of Level 1
He Pīpī (Limited Proficiency)	He Kaha (Conversational Proficiency)	He Kaha Ake (Moderate Proficiency)	He Pakari (Higher Proficiency)
The learner with limited proficiency can talk about different things within the context of his/her own knowledge base. He/she has little, if any, speaking ability in Māori; his/her writing ability is limited to scribbling or making patterns; and he/she has very little experience with books and written language.	The learner with conversational proficiency can use words and short sentences to meet his/her needs, and is able to understand simple speech, but not yet very fluent speaking. He/she is becoming familiar with text but does not necessarily read the words, focusing instead on what the text may be about.	The learner with moderate proficiency uses simple sentences and asks simple questions; understands conversational language; and knows how to form words. He/she recognizes the relationships between sound and letters; can follow language examples; and understands that writing, letters, words, phrases, and sentences all have a purpose. He/she can read to understand the main purpose of the text.	The learner with higher proficiency speaks Māori with ease and understands spoken Māori. He/she is able to link sounds to letters and words, and reads for understanding. The learner is able to write simple sentences, possibly with some errors. He/she interacts easily with others in Māori because of his/her strong language skills.
Reading-specific outcomes by the end of Level 1
The learner: Understands that written and visual text is created by someone Recognizes the relationship between sound and letters/words Understands the directional nature of text—left to right, top to bottom	The learner: Understands that a word can retain its meaning when written in various texts Uses pictures and punctuation to gain meaning from text and is able to follow text correctly when reading for meaning Understands that punctuation and spacing between words serve a purpose; constructs meaning from text and is able to follow text correctly when reading for meaning	The learner: Knows why he/she likes some stories and visual language Can identify particular words when they are appear in different contexts Uses letter and sound knowledge to read and spell common words Re-reads in order to correct errors Links personal experiences to text and speech as a strategy for gaining meaning	The learner: Applies personal experiences to bring meaning to text Understands that ideas and knowledge expressed in text are those of the writer or illustrator Attempts to gain meaning from new words in a text Self-corrects some reading and writing errors Uses their personal experience and knowledge of text characteristics to gain meaning
By the end of Level 2—The learner has an awareness of the purpose of a text and its audience. His/her range of vocabulary is increasing along with understanding how are words are used. He/she uses language strategies and is able to explain these strategies to produce and understand language, and uses strategies to look for meaning in unfamiliar texts. The learner sometimes reads silently.
By the end of Level 3—The learner can identify features of many forms of written and visual language; the range of vocabulary is increasing, as well as usage, and he/she understands some technical/specialist words. He/she reads silently or aloud according to their preference; uses a range of strategies to establish the meaning of various texts and visual language; and is starting to use research strategies.
By the end of Level 4—The learner will understand the differences between a reader’s perspective and a writer/illustrator’s perspectives; understands and uses descriptive and comparative phrases to enhance a topic; can spell new words correctly; and follows the rules of grammar. He/she can use some research strategies for a range of purposes and is able to process and adapt information.