came under fire for fast-tracking structured literacy in 2025<\/a> by educators, who said mandates were counter-productive when students have different needs and changes took away teachers\u2019 ability to teach the individual.<\/p>\nUnder National\u2019s new Teaching the Basics Brilliantly plan, the Government requires all primary schools to spend an hour each on reading, writing and maths every day. The policy doesn\u2019t contain information about when a child is developmentally ready for that duration of structured learning.<\/p>\n
In policy documents, the party says: \u201cIf we continue to allow children to reach high school without mastering the basics, we\u2019re just setting them up for failure.<\/p>\n
\u201cStructured literacy teaches children in an explicit and systematic way that aligns with the science of how our brains learn best, starting with the smallest units of sound (phonemes) and building up from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education Minister Erica Stanford chose not to comment when approached, but in October 2025 she celebrated new data showing a \u201csignificant boost\u201d in phonics achievement rates at primary schools.<\/p>\n
The data showed 58% of students were at or above expectations at their 20-week phonics check in Term 3. This is up from 36% in Term 1.<\/p>\n
Dr Sarah Alexander, chief adviser of the Office of Early Childhood Education and early childhood expert, believes we should be asking whether the current curriculum is flexible enough to meet children where they are, if it allows teachers to do the role they know best, and if children are actually being allowed to still be kids.<\/p>\n
Alexander says parents, teachers and children themselves are best placed to judge readiness to read and she believes much of the anxiety around literacy comes from the \u201cplethora of advice out there\u201d, alongside curriculum expectations and pressure on early childhood education.<\/p>\n
She says there is an argument in academia for delaying formal reading and writing until children are 7 or 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really comes down to the importance of both honouring what we know about how young children\u2019s brains develop and at the same time still work within a school system where children do start school at 5. And that\u2019s where we need to see adjustments and how things are done, in 5- and 6-year-old classrooms,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest harm comes from narrowing children\u2019s experiences, because it limits opportunities to explore, think, learn independently and develop motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Dr Sarah Alexander.<\/p>\n
For parents worried about what test results mean for future outcomes before the age of 7, her advice is simple: don\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an important message for teachers too; these tests aren\u2019t an indication of later success. They\u2019re just an indication of performance on a particular measure that the school was required to report on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wallis expands on that idea, noting that before the age of 7, \u201cthe biggest predictor of success is what kind of learner you think you are\u201d.<\/p>\n
He warns that labelling children as being behind other students or milestones can become part of their identity. Instead of focusing on comparisons, parents should encourage perseverance and recognise strengths in all forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need parents saying things like, \u2018All different people are all good at all different things\u2019. Because you\u2019ll be able to find something that your child\u2019s way ahead of [compared with] other people. Even the kid that\u2019s not good at learning, he might be way better at telling jokes. He might be way better at noticing that the plants need to be watered. There\u2019s always something that people are better at.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I took Wallis\u2019 advice, maybe because it pertained to me, maybe because, as a parent, it reduced some anxiety in me, and I asked my son what he thought he was the best at at school.<\/p>\n
His reply? Being a good friend.<\/p>\n
A fantastic skill, one of the most important a person could learn, but not one that our education system counts as a measure of success.<\/p>\n
Taking Wallis and Alexander\u2019s advice about dispositions, I asked my son how he felt about himself as a learner, and he told me he\u2019s \u201cso good\u201d at it.<\/p>\n
The only thing that seemed to need some work was my belief that comparing him with other children was the right way to predict his outcomes.<\/p>\n
I realised parents shouldn\u2019t rely solely on what our education system deems important; we should also do our own research and always advocate for our children\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
So, I talked to his teachers and made sure I felt empowered about his learning, but I also asked them about other important things: was he kind and respectful? How did he handle failure and success? Did he give up, or keep trying? What kind of friend was he? The answers to those questions mattered far more to me.<\/p>\n
I learned from these conversations that a successful, well-rounded human is far from determined by their reading test scores at age 5. <\/p>\n
What should you do if you are worried about your child\u2019s schooling progress?<\/p>\n
Dr Sarah Alexander explains:<\/p>\n
Talk with teachers, but also trust your knowledge of your child: Listen to the teacher\u2019s feedback while remembering that your child has plenty of time to grow and learn.Focus on rich learning experiences: Keep reading together, exploring interests, visiting places, playing, and engaging in activities that build curiosity, confidence, and language skills.Avoid making learning a source of stress: Support your child without turning challenges into a problem they feel responsible for fixing, as anxiety can ruin enjoyment of learning.Keep concerns in perspective: A low score does not mean a child cannot learn to read. Children develop skills in different ways and at different rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Or was 5 actually too early to learn to read? To find answers, I did what I\u2019d always…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27703,1061,17310,5658,71,26641,78,296,12027,9088,117,111,43,139,12909,69,15403,3271,61,26671,49632,6923,1316,80],"class_list":["post-551561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-born","tag-children","tag-drilled","tag-experts","tag-from","tag-importance","tag-in","tag-into","tag-learn","tag-milestones","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-normal","tag-nz","tag-read","tag-should","tag-to","tag-tracking","tag-weigh","tag-what","tag-when","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}