National's Education Spokesperson Erica Stanford Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The National Party is promising to require primary schools to use the "structured literacy" approach to teaching reading and writing.
It would also require primary school teachers to learn the approach as part of certification, introduce phonics checks to test Year 2s' reading, and bring in structured literacy interventions for those who need extra support.
The Structured Literacy approach teaches reading by starting with phonemes - the smallest units of sound - and building up from there. National's plan would include putting a "literacy lead" who had received specialist training from an accredited provider to support teachers and teacher aides.
The strategy would be phased in starting with Years 1-3 from 2025, covering all pupils up to Year 6 by 2027. The party expects the policy to cost $60.5 million over four years.
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National's education spokesperson Erica Stanford announced the policy on Friday afternoon.
"Rather than being the great equaliser, the education system is right now embedding inequality," she said. "National will not play Russian roulette with our children's future by leaving the fundamentals of reading to chance."
She said there was "mountains of evidence" to show the structured literacy approach was the most effective way to teach children how to read.
"Ensuring children learn to read, write and communicate effectively from an early age is critical to their life prospects.
"Under National, schools will receive funding to engage a structured literacy provider to effectively deliver the approach in classrooms under the guarantee."
The phonics checks would involve Year 2 children being asked to read words aloud - including some made-up "psuedo-words" - to test how they decode new words. The party said this would provide teachers with more information about pupils' reading abilities and allow intervention for those who needed extra support.
Those who did need more support would get it through funding reprioritised from the Reading Recovery programme, which National said was outdated.
Teacher education and professional development courses would also be updated with Structured Literacy training.