Let’s Just Get One Thing Clear

Debunking the Ministry’s Misinformation on Reading Assessment

In the latest Ministry of Education Bulletin (4 February 2025), a statement was made under the section ‘Phonics check’:

"For the first time, tools to check how children and mokopuna are progressing in learning how to read are available for all teachers and kaiako."

Let’s pause right there.

For the first time?

This is not just misleading—it’s outright false.

The implication here is that, until now, teachers in New Zealand have had no way to assess how their students are progressing in learning to read. That, without the Ministry’s latest tools, teachers have simply been taking a wild guess. This statement perpetuates a damaging and deeply uninformed narrative about the professionalism and expertise of educators in Aotearoa.

Teachers Have Always Used Data to Inform Reading Instruction

New Zealand teachers have never relied on guesswork when it comes to teaching children to read. Literacy instruction has always been guided by assessment, reflection, and responsive teaching.

Teachers use assessment data in a continuous cycle:

1. Assess – Using formal and informal tools, teachers gather data on a child’s reading ability.

2. Analyse – The results are examined to determine strengths, gaps, and instructional needs.

3. Adapt – Teaching strategies are adjusted based on what the data reveals.

4. Monitor – Progress is tracked to ensure students are moving forward, with interventions applied where necessary.

This is not a new process. Teachers have been data-driven professionals for decades, and this applies across all reading instruction methods, from traditional phonics-based approaches to more meaning-based literacy models.

A History of Reading Assessment in New Zealand

Teachers have long had a range of tools available to monitor student progress. Here’s a brief historical summary of just some of the tools that have been used:

Early Literacy Assessments (New Entrants – Year 2)

• 5.1-Month New Entrant Literacy Check – Screens early literacy skills shortly after school entry.

• 6-Year Net (Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement, Marie Clay, 1980s) – A widely used diagnostic tool assessing phonemic awareness, word recognition, writing vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

• BSLA (Better Start Literacy Approach) assessments – Phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and early decoding assessments used in structured literacy interventions.

Established Reading Assessments (Years 1-8)

• Running Records (Marie Clay, 1970s) – A tool to analyse reading behaviours and comprehension in real time.

• The Ready to Read series (introduced in the 1960s, updated through the decades) – Accompanied by detailed teacher guidance on assessing progress.

• The New Zealand Curriculum Reading Progressions (2007) – A structured framework outlining expected reading development at different stages.

• Literacy Learning Progressions (2010s) – Guidelines for tracking literacy development across year levels.

• PROBE (Progressive Achievement Tests in Reading Comprehension) – Used extensively across schools to assess comprehension skills.

• PM Benchmark Reading Assessments – A widely implemented tool to gauge reading levels and strategies.

• e-asTTle Reading (2000s–present) – An adaptive online reading comprehension assessment, offering detailed reports on student progress.

• PaCT (Progress and Consistency Tool, 2014) – A digital platform designed to support teacher judgments in literacy.

None of these tools were created by the current Ministry. Yet, every single one has been used by teachers to monitor student reading progress over the past 50 years.

The Evolution of Reading Instruction

One of the key principles of education is that teaching evolves as we learn more about how children acquire literacy skills. The most recent shift has been towards structured literacy, which places a strong emphasis on phonemic awareness, systematic phonics instruction, and explicit teaching of language structures.

This move is part of a natural progression—not an abandonment of past methods, but an adjustment based on new insights. The same thing happened when New Zealand moved towards whole language approaches in the 1980s, and again when balanced literacy emerged to integrate phonics with meaning-based strategies.

At every stage, teachers have engaged with professional learning, explored new research, and adapted their practice accordingly. They have always been active learners, refining their craft to meet the needs of their students.

Teachers Are Not Guessing—They Are Experts

The idea that teachers have been “guessing” at how to teach reading—an idea first publicly floated by Minister Erica Stanford in March 2023 when she suggested teachers were “putting their finger in the wind” to decide what to do—is insulting and completely disconnected from reality.

Teachers undergo extensive training in literacy instruction. They engage in professional development, collaborate with colleagues, and use assessment data daily to guide their teaching decisions.

The tools announced in the Ministry’s latest bulletin do not mark the first time that teachers have had a way to track reading progress. Instead, they are just the latest addition to a well-established and evolving toolkit.

Any resources that support teachers in their practice are welcome. But to claim that this is the first time teachers have access to reading progress assessments is simply untrue. It undermines the professionalism of educators and ignores the rich history of literacy assessment in Aotearoa.

It’s time we push back against these misleading narratives and give credit where it’s due—to the thousands of teachers who have long been using evidence-based assessments to support children’s reading journeys.