| Abstrakt: |
In the past two decades, New Zealand has achieved international renown for the high quality of its literacy education. Despite increased immigration and the numbers of families living in poverty, as well as relatively low teacher salaries, New Zealand has one the highest literacy rates in the industrialized world (see the summary of New Zealand's results from the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA], 2000). Its reputation as a nation of readers has intrigued researchers and classroom-based educators alike. Curiosity about how New Zealand has accomplished its success led a group of 50 U.S. educators, including the first, second, and fourth authors of this article, to visit the country during the summer of 2000 to observe firsthand the literacy practices used in primary classrooms. Our purpose was to learn as much as we could about New Zealand's unique educational system. We were fortunate to meet a number of key players in literacy education as we toured around New Zealand. We began our journey by visiting the Auckland College of Education, where we met with professionals from the Centre for Literacy and Languages, Enterprise Development, and Research. Here we learned about teacher education in New Zealand, the New Zealand Curriculum Framework, the structure and governance of public schools, school funding, and the school calendar. While in Auckland, we were delighted to have a meeting with Dame Marie Clay, the founder of the very successful Reading Recovery program. Dame Marie was very generous with her time, and told us everything we wanted to know about Reading Recovery. We also met with regional representatives from the Books in Homes program, which promotes family literacy. To complement what we had learned, we met with officials at the New Zealand Education Review Office, who explained the evaluation process all educational institutions that receive government funding must undergo. Now we felt equipped and ready to visit classrooms and learn even more. What follows is a summary of what we saw and heard about literacy education in New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
