Managing the Mismatch: Enhancing Early Literacy Progress for Children With Diverse Language and Cultural Identities in Mainstream Urban Schools in New Zealand.

A model of school change for culturally and linguistically diverse students in New Zealand: a summary and evidence from systematic replication

“…The profiles indicated that students were high decoders but weak in other aspects of reading comprehension, thereby discounting one theory (that students needed more support in decoding) and confirming the other (that students' decoding was adequate but they needed support in comprehending what they were decoding) (Robinson & Lai, 2006). This emphasises again the need for close descriptions of student learning as well as descriptions of patterns of teaching, which are sufficiently broadly based to provide a basis for informed decisions about teaching, collected and analysed together within the community to clarify and test hypotheses about how to develop effective and sustainable practices (Phillips et al, 2004).…”

“…There are a number of studies, not directly of reading comprehension but in schooling improvement, which have shown how these expectations can be changed and how they impact on instruction and learning. In general, both changes to beliefs about students and more evidence-based decisions about instruction are implicated, often in the context of school-wide or even cluster-wide initiatives (Phillips, McNaughton & MacDonald, 2004).…”

Sustained Acceleration of Achievement in Reading Comprehension: The New Zealand Experience

“…These changes have been associated with reductions in the disparities in accuracy and fluency of early reading at a national level (Crooks & Flockton, 2005). Experimental evidence supports the conclusion that specific changes in beginning instruction that have been implemented in groups of schools have been effective (e.g., Phillips, McNaughton, & MacDonald, 2004).…”

Childcare Use and Its Role in Indigenous Child Development: Evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia

“…In their study of Australian children, Leigh and Gong (2009) found that Indigenous children at age five had similar cognitive scores as non-Indigenous children at age four. In New Zealand, M aori children achieved significantly lower levels on conventional school literacy measures than non-M aori children at the time of school entry (Phillips et al, 2004;and references therein). Similarly, Indian-American children in the U.S. and Aboriginal children in Canada have lower levels of reading and numeracy skills in early school years than nonminority groups (Clotfelter et al, 2009;Richards et al, 2010;Fischer & Stoddard, 2013).…”