Accelerating progress in literacy – Teacher guidance

Targeted support builds on universal (tier 1) classroom teaching, accelerating the progress of students needing extra help so they can fully engage with their year level curriculum. Effective universal classroom teaching that includes small group work targeted to specific needs is part of the same continuum as targeted teaching.

See Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for an explanation of universal, targeted, and tailored teaching.

Targeted teaching accelerates progress through focused small-group instruction. It is additional, explicit instruction that models skills, addresses specific needs, and helps students apply learning in new contexts – it’s not just more lessons. Effective targeted teaching reflects students’ cultural identities, languages (including non-spoken languages/augmentative and alternative communication), knowledge, beliefs, and experiences.

Typically, targeted small group support:

• provides intensive, focused instruction aligned with the English learning area teaching sequence statements for the students level
• builds on and connects with the classroom programme
• involves frequent, explicit instruction with more opportunities to rehearse, retrieve, respond, and practice
• uses the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) strategy with more ‘I Do’ and ‘We Do’ opportunities
• is guided by assessments to identify skill gaps, with regular progress monitoring to adjust or increase support if necessary.

Targeted teaching is provided by the classroom teacher, with support by school leadership, SENCO, Learning Support Coordinators, structured literacy support staff, and other specialists as needed. Successful targeted teaching requires collaboration among teachers, students, whānau, and specialist support staff. School leadership and strong engagement with family and whānau are key to its effectiveness (Te Tuapapa video, Ministry of Education, 2022). For more information, see Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance.

Structured literacy elements in the English learning area

The curriculum phase sections in this resource offer guidance on targeted teaching of specific structured literacy elements and give examples of lesson planning templates for small-group support. The table below shows how the elements of structured literacy approaches are woven into the three English strands. 

Note: The elements of structured literacy approaches are on p. 22 of the English learning area.

“Explicitly teaching essential knowledge and skills and addressing barriers to learning provides equitable access to language and literacy learning” (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 22).

Students learn, process information, and show understanding in different ways. Plan targeted teaching that enables all learners’ participation and success.

Use an ecological approach

An ecological approach considers the contexts, environments, and systems shaping student development. Effective targeted support starts with knowing your learners – their home, school, cultural, and community settings – and how these influence their strengths and needs. 

Key resources

• He Pikorua | Ecological –Tools for inclusive planning.
• Kohikohi | Ecological assessment – A framework for gathering and analysing student information across the layers of Te Tūāpapa – Te Matua (universal), Te Kāhui (targeted) and Te Arotahi (tailored). 
• Inclusive Education Guides – Support for planning and meeting the needs of the diverse learners.
• Guide to inclusive classroom culture – Strategies to create an inclusive classroom culture that values all students, their families/whānau, and communities.

Partner with parents and whānau

Work with parents and whānau to gather insights, set goals, and share progress. Research (Gillon et al., 2024) shows that supporting whānau with reading strategies accelerates children’s literacy progress.

See Working with whānau in Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for schoolwide information.

Bilingual and multilingual language learners

Understanding the strengths, needs, and skills of English language learners (ELLs) is key to effective targeted support. Explicit and structured teaching benefits all learners, and ELLs particularly benefit from planned vocabulary instruction, comprehension strategies, and connections to their first languages.

Key resource

• ELLP and ELLP Pathway – Guides for assessing, planning, and selecting content suited to students’ age, stage, and language-learning needs.

Social and emotional aspects of learning success

Motivation and cultural knowledge support student engagement and success. These factors increase in importance through the primary years and into secondary school. Consider the interests and culture of your students when planning targeted support. 

• Use culturally relevant materials and allow home-language use. 
• Critically examine texts through a culturally responsive lens.
• Use game-based and collaborative activities, e.g. paired reading.
• Offer student choice in reading materials.
• Build in opportunities to experience success – see English learning area, p. 23," Developing positive identities as communicators, readers, and writers" for further detail.

Set clear goals and give immediate, explicit feedback so students can track their progress and stay motivated. Gradually increase difficulty to challenge your students without overwhelming them, encouraging persistence.

When students feel anxious, they have fewer cognitive resources available for learning (Ministry of Education, 2024). You can help them manage this anxiety by discussing how your targeted teaching leads to progress and routinely celebrate their successes.

Key resources 

The Inclusive Education website guides provide strategies and suggestions for social and emotional learning supports.

• Guide to behaviour and learning | Embed social and emotional learning
• Guide to supporting ākonga Māori 
• Guide to supporting Pacific learners 

Your class includes students with differing strengths and learning needs. Knowing your learners and building relationships with parents and whānau helps you to identify students needing targeted support and plan effectively. 

Early identification and teaching support is key

It’s more effective to provide additional support early when gaps are small rather than waiting to see if students catch up on their own. 

Notice and recognise 

Use the English learning area teaching sequences to identify areas where your students may need additional support. These sequences guide instruction — not student outcomes. 

Note: The progress outcomes describe what students will understand, know, and do by the end of each phase. It is important to notice, recognise, and respond where students need help to fully engage with the teaching sequence statements within a phase rather than waiting until the end of the phase. Intervene early before gaps grow.

For those who are already fully engaging with the teaching sequence statements for their year level, continue to monitor students’ progress and take action to increase support if needed.

What to notice

Look for students who may:

• have a limited vocabulary, difficulty forming questions, or struggle with sentence structure
• find it difficult to respond appropriately to questions, understand words and instructions (may watch peers to see what to do), or participate in extended conversation
• struggle to express their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs; use non-verbal cues (such as facial expression, tone of voice); initiating, maintaining, and repairing conversations or play with peers
• be slow to secure phonemic awareness skills, alphabetic code knowledge (connecting phonemes to graphemes), and word decoding and encoding
• decode each word at the grapheme level instead of recognising previously read words instantly, affecting their reading fluency
• have difficulty comprehending texts at their year level
• have untidy writing, or struggle with letter formation, spacing, or pencil grip
• struggle to organise their ideas in speech or writing
• have lots of spelling errors, and difficulty representing phonemes with correct graphemes, or applying morphological knowledge and spelling conventions
• find it difficult to form grammatically correct spoken or written sentences.

Investigate anything you notice to understand the cause and inform your response.

Assessment and monitoring

Use universal screening and diagnostic skills assessments to identify who needs extra help. Then plan instruction, monitor growth, and evaluate progress to plan next steps and adjust teaching strategies if necessary.  

Adapted from: Jaime Harris, 2019 

As you plan your targeted teaching support, plan the frequency of monitoring, identify what you are monitoring, and how you are monitoring, e.g., specific observation, progress monitoring, testing. 

Universal screening

Universal screening assessments help identify students at risk of literacy challenges early. They are typically given 2-3 times a year and can be used alongside teacher observations and whānau input for a full picture of student needs. They are brief, easy to administer, and often used with the whole class.  

Don’t wait for schoolwide screening. If you notice a student needs additional support, conduct a relevant diagnostic skills assessment and provide immediate support. Observations, standardised screening assessment, and parent and whānau insights are all valuable for identifying students needing additional support. 

Diagnostic skills assessments

For students identified through screening as needing additional support, use diagnostic skills assessments to gain a detailed understanding of their specific needs. Connect with parents and whānau to build a complete picture and use the information to plan your targeted teaching.

Progress monitoring tools and evaluations of progress

Progress monitoring tools help you take note of and evaluate student growth, as well as identify where instruction might need to be adapted. They may be given daily or weekly depending on the intensity of the targeted teaching and the students’ needs. 

Summative assessments

Summative assessments evaluate student performance at the end of an instructional period. They measure achievement and help teachers determine the effectiveness of their instruction. 

Assessing oral language, reading, and writing

You can use specific literacy assessments, such as for phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling, to identify which structured literacy approach elements you may need to target. 

The following is general advice about assessing students’ oral language, reading, and writing needs. 

Oral language

Use teacher observations to identify students needing additional support. For more information, see the section in tab 2 "Oral language as the foundation". 

Reading

The simple view of reading by Gough and Turner (1986) is a well-known development model for reading that tells us: 

Decoding (Word recognition) x Language comprehension = Reading comprehension 

The simple view of reading is a multiplicative equation. Both decoding and language comprehension are needed for reading comprehension. Use screening tools to identify students needing support, then assess the specific skill gaps to focus your targeted teaching. 

The AIM Quick Guide For Reading Assessment provides decision-making flowcharts to help you:

• select diagnostic assessments
• identify specific student needs
• group students effectively
• plan focused literacy support.

When assessing emerging readers, begin this progression from the bottom up, adding assessment measures as they become developmentally appropriate. When assessing older students, start your analysis from the top of the progression with reading comprehension and fluency measures, then work down through the foundational sub-skills as needed.

By using these tools, you can provide explicit, responsive, targeted teaching that helps all students make progress.

The infographics are best viewed full screen. To do this, right click on the image, then select open in a new tab.

Source: AIM Institute, 2021

Note: although phonemic awareness is listed as the lowest level skill in the AIM quick guide and is separate from decoding and/or phonics, both targeted and universal instruction should teach phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge together. Research shows that combining instruction is more effective than oral-only phonemic awareness.    

For older learners, monitoring assessment measures need to be more complex. They involve monitoring:  

• more specific vocabulary and/or more complex spoken language understanding tasks  
• more complex phonological processing and morphological awareness tasks   
• passage reading (Oral Reading Fluency, ORF)   
• spelling tasks and simple sentence writing to support interpretation of areas of need.  

Focusing on reading text can help identify word reading needs and determine reading comprehension needs. Contrasting text comprehension with speech comprehension helps identify the specific area of need. 

Writing  

Writing is a complex process. The Not-So-Simple View of Writing (Berninger & Winn, 2006) highlights three key components and the influence of working memory on:   

• composition – main goals of writing; ideas, word, sentence, text levels   
• transcription – spelling, handwriting, typing  
• executive functions – planning, motivation, revising, self-regulating, attention, goal setting.   

Source: Learning Difficulties Australia

Analyse student writing to pinpoint areas for targeted support. Tools like e-asTTle assess ideas, structure and language, organisation, vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. Universal screeners quickly check if students are meeting year-level expectations. Use them to identify those who may need extra support to fully engage with the content of the teaching sequence statements for their year level.   

Understanding your students’ specific needs means you can provide additional targeted support to accelerate their learning. For example, a student may have many great ideas but find spelling (transcription) challenging and have difficulty with working memory. To support learning, you might plan targeted handwriting or spelling teaching and provide supports such as graphic organisers to reduce the load on working memory.   

Ministry recommended assessment tools 

New Zealand schools can select their own assessment tools. The Ministry of Education supports structured literacy approaches with the following assessments.    

Phonics checks  

• Administered after 20 and 40 term-time weeks at school.   
• Helps identify students who would benefit from additional support with decoding.   
• Provides diagnostic information to show what students know and need to learn next.   

For students who need additional teaching to accelerate their decoding skills, continue to provide frequent, explicit teaching and practice with targeted knowledge and skills.  

Phonics checks – Guidance for schools

Phonics checks – Assessment materials

DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) subtest  

• A one-minute test where students read “made up” words.  
• Measures grapheme-phoneme correspondences and ability to blend sounds into words.   

DIBELS assessment – Supporting videos

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF)   

ORF is a standardised individually administered measure of accuracy and fluency with connected text. Various ORF assessments are available, including DIBELS. ORF testing is:  

• recommended from year 2 onward  
• a one-minute valid, reliable indicator of reading development.  

ORF benchmarking tests help determine students needing targeted fluency support. Students who read with less than 95% accuracy and/or do not meet the ORF norms for their year level will require further assessment to identify the underlying cause of their dysfluency. You can compare students’ words-correct-per minute scores (WCPM) to oral reading fluency norms for their year level to determine if their fluency rates are above, at, or below expectations.    

Note: If you are using the Hasbrouck and Tindal ORF Norms (2017), then students who score more than ten words beneath the fiftieth percentile for their year level will need further diagnostic skills assessment and targeted teaching to address their needs.   

DIBELS website – freely available, standardised test available as both a benchmark test and a progress monitoring assessment.  

New Zealand Friendly DIBELS 8 Materials

Other literacy assessment tools you might want to consider using in your school 

• Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) are multi-choice standardised assessments for students in years 3-10. They are formative, low-stakes assessments to determine how students are progressing, rather than a solitary indicator of progress. They include:  
  • pānui | reading comprehension  
  • listening comprehension  
  • punctuation and grammar  
  • reading vocabulary. 
• e-asTTle assessments provide information on what a student knows and next learning steps.  
  • For reading, use with students in years 4-10  
  • For writing, use with students in years 1-10.  
• DIBELS 8th Edition Australasian Version Materials 
  • Phonemic segmentation fluency (PSF) years 1-2  
  • Letter naming fluency (LNF) years 1-2  
  • Nonsense word fluency (NWF) years 1-4  
  • Word reading fluency (WRF) years 1-4  
  • Oral reading fluency (ORF) years 1-9  
  • Maze reading comprehension for years 3-9  
  • Videos for administering the tests are available from DIBELS 8th Edition Resources.
• Handwriting speed and legibility - for example, carry out a one-minute alphabet writing fluency check for screening and progress monitoring where you:  
  1. ask students to continuously write the alphabet for 60 seconds  
  2. observe letter formation and legibility  
  3. count number of letters (automaticity / fluency).   
• Writing - Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) monitors student progress across the year. Tests (or probes) are brief, easy to administer and quantify student progress, and whether targeted support is helping a student. In Using CBM for progress monitoring in written expression and spelling, Fuchs & Fuchs (2011, pp. 6-15) explain a 3–5-minute writing task to monitor progress looking at number of words written and words spelled correctly. 

“Students learn best when teachers inquire into their progress and respond by adapting their teaching practice” (Ministry of Education, 2023).   

Targeted support adapts teaching through scaffolding, gradually reducing support as students gain independence. It is not about differentiating the content or creating easier versions of a learning activity. It involves continually assessing the strengths and needs of your students and adapting your teaching so that all students can meet curriculum learning expectations. See "Designing and adapting everyday teaching and learning" in Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for further schoolwide information.  

Once you have identified students and their specific needs for targeted teaching (for more information, see the section above “Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching”), plan pace and frequency so that students can master important content. 

• Consider how the students’ previous learning may influence their ability to engage with new content. To support their learning:  
  • connect new content with students’ existing knowledge or provide additional frontloading if students need support with critical knowledge or vocabulary  
  • build in additional practice for students that need it in small groups  
  • reframe questions, and/or provide a range of question options that provide greater scaffolding or greater stretch.   
• Design for diverse needs from the outset. Plan additional supports within lessons, and targeted lessons for small groups so that all students’ needs are met.  
• Maintain high expectations for all students.  
• Monitor impact and engagement frequently and adapt teaching to meet learning needs, for example, observe participation, have students verbalise their process while reading or summarising, check their written work, and use assessments. 

Adaptive teaching also includes in-the-moment adaptations. These are unpacked in the infographic below. The infographics are best viewed full screen. To do this, right click on the image, then select open in a new tab.

Adapted from: Education South West

Plan a systematic and explicit approach 

Targeted support is most effective in small group instruction (3-5 students), focusing on specific student needs identified through diagnostic assessments (e.g., teach blending or build fluency). Groups should be flexible and short-term, adjusting as students' progress.   

See "Planning for targeted teaching" in Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for further information. 

• Plan to increase the time and intensity of instruction for students who need more support to make progress. This includes learning broken into small steps, explicit modelling and immediate feedback, and increased repetition. Students are likely to need more time spent in the “I do, we do” phases of the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) teaching strategy before moving to independent practice. For more information, see Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework (Fisher and Frey, 2013).  
• Align your teaching strategies to optimise students’ learning potential. Provide consistent language and approaches to consolidate understanding and reduce cognitive load. Alignment between universal and targeted teaching ensures students are not overwhelmed by conflicting content, instead they benefit from additional practice and repetition.   
• Front loading is a proactive strategy that provides students with information or skills before they encounter a learning task. It may include pre-teaching vocabulary and concepts, pre-reading and discussing a text before it is read to the class or providing background knowledge to support students make connections to the classroom learning. Teaching students the content before the rest of the class may increase their confidence and let them take a more active part in learning experiences, sharing their knowledge with peers.  
• Provide explicit teaching with immediate feedback. Students benefit from clear, systematic instruction that breaks down complex concepts into manageable steps. This approach ensures students understand what to do, why it matters, and how to apply the skills independently. Plan consistent modelling using think-alouds and worked examples to explain and demonstrate step-by-step. Use guided practice and immediate feedback to build student confidence and help them achieve literacy proficiency. For further detail see, p. 21 of the English learning area.  
• Give immediate explicit feedback. Use a ‘stop and correct’ approach, for example, if a student says, “He goed to the park,” repeat the correct language to the student – “He went to the park,” and then have the student say the correct sentence with you, if appropriate.  
• Scaffold learning and then slowly remove the scaffolds to work towards independence (gradual release of responsibility). Start by modelling the skill you want students to learn, such as decoding words or constructing a sentence, and think aloud to demonstrate your process. Use tools like graphic organisers, sentence starters, or anchor charts to help students structure their thoughts and focus on key aspects of oral language, reading, and writing. Provide guided practice by working alongside students, gradually reducing support as they demonstrate more independence. Encourage peer collaboration so students can learn with and from each other, using structured activities like partner reading or group discussions (and provide immediate feedback to support accuracy). Check regularly for understanding, and adapt your support based on each student’s needs so they stay engaged and make steady progress.   
• Templates and graphic organisers provide a structure and framework to support students' thinking and organisation. Consistently use the same templates and graphic organisers to provide familiarity and reduce cognitive load.  
• Spaced practice/retrieval involves practising a skill or retrieval of knowledge over time. This is more effective than practising all at once, and moving on to a new topic (Furst, 2021). Students needing additional support often need more repetitions and revision for learning to be consolidated, so plan for spaced practice with daily review of previous learning in your small group targeted lessons. After a few repetitions, the memory decay is slower, and larger spaces can be used. It is also important to continue to periodically review earlier learning as part of this process, so it is embedded. Make the review low stakes (not in a test format). For example: 

Adapted from: Jocelyn Seamer Education

• Interleaving means mixing related concepts instead of practicing one skill at a time. This helps students deepen understanding, recognise patterns, and form connections (Firth, Rivers & Boyle, 2021). For example, after teaching consonant digraphs (sh, ch, and so on), reinforce it when teaching split vowel digraphs (e.g., a_e, e_e, and so on). Have students practice words like shake, chose, theme, and chafe to see how different patterns represent the same long vowel sounds. This approach strengthens decoding skills and helps students apply their knowledge flexibly. It also enhances spaced practice because revisiting skills in different contexts improves retention. Frequent revision is especially important for students needing targeted support as they often need more repetitions for learning to become automatic.  
• Retrieval practice involves teachers regularly prompting students to recall previously learned concepts and skills, rather than passively reviewing material, e.g., students listening to the teacher explaining last week’s vocabulary words. This could involve short, low-stakes quizzes, asking students to summarise key vocabulary or suffixing conventions from the previous day, writing a dictated sentence containing recently taught spelling patterns, or prompting them to recall the steps involved in a specific writing strategy. Regularly incorporating retrieval practice, even for brief periods, significantly enhances long-term retention and learning. Remember to provide specific feedback after retrieval attempts, addressing any misconceptions and reinforcing correct information. 

Intensity and length of support  

The targeted lesson duration and frequency (dosage) you plan will vary according to need. Use ongoing assessment and monitoring (at least weekly) to guide the length of your targeted support and make changes. Progress monitoring informs your decision to end or continue the targeted support, adjust instruction, or to increase the level of support.   

Research suggests:  

• “Effective interventions require sufficient frequency and duration. Intensive sessions conducted multiple times a week are more effective than less frequent sessions ... Ensure interventions are sustained over an extended period to allow students to internalise and apply new skills” (Gillon et al., 2024, p.59).  
• Shorter targeted interventions, for example 20 hours over 10 weeks, are effective for many children who require targeted teaching support (Gillon et al., 2024 p.9).  

See "Planning for targeted teaching" in Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for schoolwide information. 

Regular progress monitoring checks that targeted support is effective and that students are moving toward fully engaging with the content of teaching sequence statements for their year.   

“Assessment that informs decisions about adapting teaching practice is moment-by-moment and ongoing” (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 25). For more detail, see p. 25 of the English learning area.   

Use progress monitoring tools to measure students’ progress throughout your targeted support. They may be given daily or weekly depending on the intensity of support. Progress monitoring tools report the student’s growth and help teachers to adjust instruction.   

See the Accelerating progress – Leadership guidance for further schoolwide information. 

AIM Institute for Learning & Research. (2021). Quick guide for reading assessment. 

Berninger, V. W., & Winn, W. D. (2006). Implications of Advancements in Brain Research and Technology for Writing Development, Writing Instruction, and Educational Evolution. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 96–114). The Guilford Press.  

Education South West. (2022). Understanding Adaptive Teaching. 

Firth, J., Rivers, I., Boyle, J. (2021). A systematic review of interleaving as a concept learning strategy. Review of Education Vol. 9, Issue 2, Jun 2021, pp. 642-684.  

Furst, E. (2021). Spaced practice and its role in supporting learning and retention. The Education Hub.  

Gillon, G., Everatt, J., McNeil, B., Clendon, S., LaVenia, M., Evans, T., Smith, J., Gath, M., Tufulasi, T. (2024). Accelerating Learning in Oral Language, Reading, Writing, and Mathematics: Report prepared for the Ministry of Education July 30, 2024. University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, Christchurch, New Zealand.  

Gough, P. B., & Tunmer, W.E. (1986). Decoding, reading and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7 (1), 6–10.  

Harris, J. (2019). Maximizing Tier 2 & Tier 3 Data: Progress Monitoring, Intervention Fidelity, and Intervention Effectiveness. Illuminate Education blog.  

Hasbrouck, J. & Tindal, G. (2017). An update to compiled ORF norms (Technical Report No. 1702). Eugene, OR, Behavioural Research and Teaching, University of Oregon. 

Learning Difficulties Australia. (n.d.). The simple view of writing. Image.  

Ministry of Education. (2024). Te Mātaiaho | The New Zealand Curriculum: English years 0-6, October 2024. 

Ministry of Education. (2023). Te Mātaiaho | The refreshed New Zealand Curriculum Draft for Testing | March 2023. New Zealand Government.  

Ministry of Education. (2022). Te Tuapapa. Vimeo.  

Seamer, J. (2022). Spaced Practice and Interleaving in the Reading Classroom. Jocelyn Seamer Education. 

Oral language underpins all structured literacy approaches.   

A reciprocal relationship exists between oral language and other structured literacy approach elements (such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension), with improvements in one advancing skills in the other. By focusing on the interconnected components of oral language, teachers can provide a strong foundation for literacy development and help students become confident and successful communicators, readers, and writers.  

It's important to understand the key components of oral language to help identify where a student is having trouble. We have organised this information into three interconnecting components: 

• Articulation (phonology): The ability to process and use sounds in a language, including clear speech production 
• Communicating using vocabulary and register: Expressive language  
• Understanding instructions and conversations: Understanding language  

These components are interlinked and difficulties often occur across the components. 

Identifying students  

The oral language strand in the English learning area is a high-level overview of what to recognise, notice, and respond to in order to accelerate student progress. Use the teaching sequences in the oral language strand of the English learning area (pp. 34-43) to notice where your students may need additional support. Teachers’ observations are important to identify students that may need additional support.  

The tables below show the progression of what to look for in the first phase. However, this is applicable across other phases. 

Articulation (phonology)  

Students should be articulating most phonemes correctly, not only in isolation, but also when saying words and sentences (taking dialects and accents into consideration).   

Some areas to notice and respond to are: 

Communicating using vocabulary and register 

Most students will have well-developed communication skills, through using oral language, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), or New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).   

Some areas to notice and respond to are: 

Understanding instructions and conversations 

Most students will follow instructions and conversations in the classroom and in less formal situations.  

Some areas to notice and respond to are: 

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Students identified as needing support with oral language development will need explicit, small group, targeted teaching in addition to universal classroom instruction.  

This targeted teaching will typically focus on vocabulary acquisition, syntax, and sentence building (e.g., plurals, past tense, prepositions), listening comprehension (e.g., following multi-step directions), and narrative language.   

Use consistent teaching strategies, structured lesson plans with explicit instruction, modelling, effective prompting, and scaffolding techniques to accelerate vocabulary learning, oral language comprehension, and oral narrative skills.   

The following table provides suggestions for accelerating oral language progress.  

Note: Some of the oral language content is expanded on in other sections because it is an important part of decoding, spelling, and writing.  

Teaching English Language Learners 

Teaching approaches for English language learners focus on explicit teaching of language components.   

Find out about a student’s first language and help them to connect it with English. When a student’s first language shares similarities with English, learning can accelerate due to positive transfer. Cognates – words with similar spelling, sound, and meaning – help expand vocabulary quickly. Similar grammatical structures, such as subject-verb-object order, make sentence construction easier. If both languages have overlapping sound systems, students may find English pronunciation and comprehension more accessible (Bardovi-Harlig & Sprouse, 2018).  

English language learners often need extra focus on conversational vocabulary, morphology, and oral language comprehension. Frequent oral language exposure and explicit instruction are essential. Targeted support should supplement, not replace, whole-class oral language and literacy instruction. Encouraging peer interaction in class and in the playground will also support development.   

Oral language intervention for English language learners has a small effect on their English reading ability. Combine targeted oral language instruction with evidence-based reading strategies, such as word decoding, to strengthen literacy skills.  

The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP) are key resources for assessment, planning, and teaching. They help teachers select content, vocabulary, and tasks appropriate to each learner's age, stage, and language-learning needs. This may include learners for whom English is a first language but who would benefit from additional language support.  

To find out more about the ELLP, visit ELLP and ELLP Pathway on Tāhūrangi. 

Monitoring progress 

Use progress monitoring assessments rather than normative or standardised language assessments to track oral language development.  

Effective progress monitoring assessments may include:   

• analysing oral narrative skills, such as including story structure elements in retells  
• quantitative measures of the number of different words, types of words, and sentences used in retells (Westerveld et al., 2008 in Gillon et al., 2024).  

Regularly collect data to identify student needs, choose appropriate targeted support, and track progress. This helps determine if they can return to a lower level of support (universal – tier 1 classroom instruction) or if increased intensity of support is needed (tailored – tier 3 (Goldfeld et al., 2021). 

Teaching example of planning 

At Summit View School Whaea Kirsty, a year 2 teacher, noticed some students having difficulty retelling stories and events. She spent a week looking at what her students were doing and found they had limited sequencing vocabulary, were often unsure what the main idea was, and did not connect characters to events or actions.  

She planned two weeks of targeted small group teaching with 20-minute lessons to build their sequencing vocabulary to order events and retell stories. The small group lessons followed a reading session and provided explicit focused teaching. Note: While specific vocabulary is needed, this is not the focus of the lesson. For an example of how to teach vocabulary, see the section below “Building vocabulary and morphology knowledge".

To make the most of the focused time, and support transfer of new learning, Kirsty also looked for connections she could make for the students to connect learning with other contexts across the curriculum, e.g., using sequencing language to give detailed instructions, recounting the main ideas from any topic work, using sequencing language in maths.  

The slides below provide an overview of the two weeks, with a detailed lesson illustrating the gradual release of responsibility strategy and specific scaffolds to support learning. The slides are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognise and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words. This is an essential component of decoding and encoding.   

Phonics instruction involves teaching the relationship between graphemes and phonemes. Students apply knowledge of phonics when decoding and encoding words. 

Identifying students  

Phonemic awareness, phonics knowledge, and decoding are focus areas within the reading strand of the English learning area (p. 48). Use the teaching sequences along with your school scope and sequence to notice where your students need additional support. Alongside this, carry out diagnostic skills assessments to identify needs and plan additional targeted teaching for those students needing support. For more information on assessments, see the section in tab one "Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching" .    

During the first 6 months and year 1 

The Ministry of Education’s Phonics checks at 20 and 40 term-time weeks confirm if children are developing the phonics knowledge needed for reading and writing success. These screening assessments also provide diagnostic information, helping you to see what students know and what they need to learn next.   

Key resources

• Phonics checks – Guidance for schools
• Phonics checks – Assessment materials

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) subtest measures automaticity of grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge as well as blending skills.   

Key resource 

• DIBELS assessment – Supporting videos

The DIBELS NWF subtest and the phonics checks complement each other in year 1.   

• Phonics checks assess progress against the New Zealand Curriculum expectations and national norms and guide teachers’ next steps in instruction.  
• DIBELS NWF subtest establishes baseline phonics knowledge at school entry, supports monitoring in the first year of school, leading up to and between the two phonics checks, and can be used for benchmarking and progress tracking up to the end of year 4. 

Years 2 and 3 

The Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment is recommended from year 2 onwards to identify students needing more targeted support. ORF assesses your students’ ability to read words in connected text. Fluency will begin to develop once students reach proficiency in phonics knowledge and decoding skills. Analysing the assessment scores will help you identify the specific support needed for individual students.   

Key resource 

• AIM Quick Guide for Reading Assessment 

For more information on assessments, see the section in tab one "Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching".   

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Connect phonemic awareness to reading and spelling to help students link sounds to letters. Focus on phoneme level skills, such as identifying, segmenting, and blending sounds, to improve reading and spelling skills. Consider students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and for multilingual learners, explicitly teach phonemes not in their first language. Use culturally relevant texts to boost engagement.  

Frequency and intensity: Provide targeted teaching support four to five times per week.  

• For specific skills, spend five minutes on activities like word chaining, continuous blending to decode words, or decoding multisyllable words.   
• For broader support, use 10-15 minutes to break a lesson into smaller steps, add scaffolds, and provide extra practice and feedback.   

Focus on explicit instruction in phonemic awareness together with phonics, word recognition, and spelling. Use progress monitoring to adjust the pace and focus of your targeted teaching.  

The following table uses the teaching sequence from the English learning area to help you identify when to provide targeted teaching with suggestions for accelerating progress. 

Note: This section of the resource focuses on providing targeted support for phonics and phonemic awareness to develop decoding and spelling skills. For more examples of targeted support, se the section "Building spelling skills".   

Teaching example of planning 

Kylie, a new entrant teacher at Summit View School notices that some students are decoding using individual sounds rather than stretching sounds and blending. Some of her students can say all the sounds correctly but then say a different word when they read it, e.g., they sound "t-o-p" but say “tip” or “pot”. She also notices that some of these students can build words correctly with letter tiles but cannot decode swiftly and correctly.  

Kylie carries out some diagnostic skills assessment with these students. She checks phoneme awareness using a short list of words with three phonemes. She records exactly what the students are doing when decoding and identifies phonemes they need to work on. She checks who:   

• can hear three phonemes and blend to a word (h-o-p = hop)  
• can hear a three phoneme word and segment to three phonemes (map = m-a-p)  
• can say the alphabet letters quickly on sight.  

Kylie identifies a small group of students for targeted support to focus on:   

• blending and manipulating phonemes using grapheme cards to help with mapping of words for automatic reading, using the blend as you read strategy  
• identifying words and fast reading to help with fluency.  

This support is an extension of the universal teaching happening in her classroom. The small group of students are given additional practice with more scaffolding and prompting to accelerate their progress in decoding and fluent reading at the single word level.  

These slides give you an overview of the teaching support provided, and a detailed lesson plan that includes what to notice as you monitor progress. The slides are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen.

Ministry resources 

• Ready to Read Phonics Plus provides information about the RTR Phonics Plus scope and sequence, the decodable book phases, and supplementary resources.   
• Ready to Read Phonics Plus cards  
  • Sound cards – Kākano | Seed
  • Phonics Cards – Tupu | Seedling
• RTR Phonics Plus Supporting games for Kākano | Seed and Tupu | Seedling — Matching Pairs, Snap cards and Bingo boards 
• Ready to Read Phonics Plus video guides show how the resources are intended for use.  
• Phonics checks – Guidance for schools
• Phonics checks – Assessment materials

Spelling is the translation of words from speech to print. It requires:   

• phonemic awareness – identifying individual sounds in words  
• grapheme-phoneme correspondences – matching sounds to letters or letter combinations  
• patterns and generalisations – recognising common letter patterns and rules  
• meaningful word parts – understanding roots, prefixes, and suffixes.  

Learning to spell is more difficult than learning to read because spelling requires complete and accurate word memories (Moats, 2022). As a result, students may progress more slowly through your scope and sequence for spelling than they do for reading. Spelling plays a crucial role in strengthening orthographic mapping and so it can have a positive effect on students’ decoding skills and automatic recognition of words when reading.   

When students build their spelling skills, they can focus more of their attention on developing and communicating ideas in their writing (Graham et al., 2012).  

Identifying students 

Spelling follows a sequence of learning. Use the teaching sequences in the English learning area along with your scope and sequence and assessment procedures to notice where your students may need additional support. Analysing student writing at word, sentence, or text level may help you to notice and recognise where spelling support is required. Signs that a student may need additional spelling support include:  

• difficulty transcribing speech to print  
• inconsistent recordings of the same sound or word  
• inability to read their own writing  
• lack of sense or clarity in sentences or longer texts  
• overuse of familiar words; avoidance of more complex vocabulary  
• slow writing pace or reluctance to write. 

If students struggle with segmenting words to spell, assess this alongside their phonics and phonemic awareness skills. Spelling development is linked to these foundational skills, so using diagnostic skills assessments can provide a fuller understanding of how phonics and phonemic awareness may be impacting a student’s ability to spell. This can help to identify specific areas for support.   

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress

Using the decode-encode-decode process during spelling ensures students engage with reading and writing sounds, words, and sentences in an integrated way. Explicit and systematic targeted supports, particularly those focusing on generating word spellings and phoneme segmentation, have been shown to be effective for improving spelling outcomes.   

The following table outlines phase specific content from the English learning area to help you identify where to provide targeted teaching in spelling.   

Note: Because spelling skills develop across multiple stages, the table has been organised by sequence statement skills rather than year level.   

Teaching example of planning 

Sally, a year 2 teacher, notices a group of students having difficulty with some spelling. She observed they were unsure about the correct grapheme representation for the /long a/ sound, resulting in errors such as rayn for rain, tak for take and snale for snail. Sally referred to the English learning area and found that during year 2, students are expected to spell words with the vowel patterns <a_e>, <ai>, <ay> representing /long a/.  

She plans a week of targeted teaching to support the orthographic mapping of <a_e>, <ai>, and <ay> to represent the /long a/, using activities focused on phoneme segmentation, word transcription, and repeated practice. In the following weeks, she plans quick revision sessions to monitor their progress. 

The slides below are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Handwriting has a limited number of elements to master. They are:   

• posture   
• grip   
• letter formation   
• automaticity/fluency.  

Years 0-3 students move through developmental stages when learning to write, from making marks which represent letters (grapheme) and words to forming words and writing sentences.   

Handwriting automaticity reduces the cognitive load of writing, supporting letter and word recognition, and cognitive mapping (Berninger & Amtmann, 2003). This allows students to focus more on creative and compositional aspects (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 32). Handwriting fluency involves both accuracy of letter formation and speed. 

Quick activity 

To build your understanding of the cognitive load some students experience with the physical act of writing, try this activity.   

1. Grab a pen and a piece of paper.   
2. Put the pen in your non-dominant hand.   
3. Lift one leg off the floor.   
4. Now try and write a sentence about a dream for the future.  

How challenging was that? Could you write a creative and descriptive sentence, or did you limit your vocabulary choice / have challenges with spelling because of the difficulty you had with the process of writing? 

Identifying students 

Use the English learning area handwriting teaching sequence and considerations to identify students needing additional support.   

In years 0-1, students learn:  

• the correct pencil grip   
• to sit in a stable position at a table  
• to begin letters at the correct point  
• to form letters and numerals correctly using the correct series of movements and efficient movements.   

By year 2, letters and numbers should be formed correctly, legibly, and with appropriate size, spacing, and placement.   

By year 3, students form letters and numbers correctly with automaticity. As well as placement, size, and spacing, focus on use of a consistent slope. 

Notice, check, and respond to (correct) students' writing posture, grip, and letter formation in any lesson where they are writing, not just in handwriting lessons. Identify the specific actions or letter formation which need additional explicit and targeted teaching.    

Graham (2010, p. 26) provides the following mean handwriting speeds as a guideline. Grade 1 is the equivalent of New Zealand year 2. According to this chart, our years 2-3 students are the equivalent of Grade 1 and Grade 2. These letters per minute are based on copying a passage, not free writing.    

Mean handwriting speeds: Letters per minute 

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

When planning targeted teaching for a handwriting group, it is important to observe, notice, and respond to the aspect or aspects of handwriting that are difficult for the group members.   

You think about what they need could ask yourself, “This student could master handwriting if they just knew ….”  

Answers could include:  

• posture  
• pencil grip (this can also impact on writing pressure being too heavy or too light)  
• paper position  
• specific letters or groups of letters  
• speed of writing (fluency).  

Use explicit instruction and follow the gradual release of responsibility model during targeted support. Teach and monitor until automaticity and fluency are achieved, remembering that legibility improves with sufficient practice. The following table provides activities and considerations for aspects of handwriting students may find difficult. These can be provided in your small group additional explicit instruction.  

Note: Because handwriting skills develop across multiple stages, the table has been organised by skills rather than year level.   

Teaching example of planning  

At Summit View School, Matua Hemi, a year 2 teacher, is reviewing student formation of letters. He noticed some students were starting in the wrong place, so letters were the wrong height. During a small group activity Matua Hemi asked the group of students to write out the alphabet in both lower and upper case so he could assess their letter formation and handwriting fluency.   

Matua Hemi planned a three-week programme for this group to review letter height and starting position.   

• Week 1: Students will identify, group, and practice letters that start at the top of the line and those that start in the middle.   
• Week 2: Students will practice handwriting with mixed letter combinations, including letters that start at the top of the line and those that start in the middle.   
• Week 3: Students will review and practice letters which proved tricky and write words, concentrating on the start point of each letter.  

He will monitor progress in the class and group handwriting lessons, and in writing lessons.

The slides below are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Ministry resources  

• Guide to Dyspraxia and learning

Vocabulary knowledge grows with age and experience, influencing oral language, text comprehension, and writing. Effective instruction emphasises understanding and includes explicit teaching, particularly for students at risk of reading difficulties.  

Morphology, the study of word structure, is one important component of vocabulary instruction. Morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of language, such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots and/or base words, help students understand and interpret unfamiliar words. Developing morphological awareness across learning areas supports vocabulary growth, reading comprehension, and spelling.   

Teaching morphology allows students to understand the structural elements of words enabling them to understand new vocabulary as they meet it across the learning areas. Students with limited vocabulary struggle to infer meanings of new words, leading to a widening achievement gap (the "Matthew Effect"). High-achieving students in early schooling know twice as many words as their low-achieving peers, highlighting the importance of targeted support.   

Beck et al. (2002) suggest that students should aim to learn 2000 to 3000 new words per year; that’s about six to eight words learnt often incidentally each day. While struggling readers may only learn one or two words per day without explicit teaching, targeted vocabulary instruction can help them meet this ambitious and achievable goal.   

Identifying students  

Vocabulary instruction is woven throughout the three strands (oral language, reading, and writing) in the English learning area. This means vocabulary teaching can be targeted in many ways. Use the teaching sequence statements in the English learning area relating to vocabulary, morphology, and word choice to guide what to notice. Refer also to the "Oral language as the foundation" section above for detail on supporting oral language development.  

Use teacher observations, conversations, and monitoring students' interactions with texts, adults, and peers to determine if targeted support is required.   

Notice if students:   

• rely on the same words when they speak, read and write, and do not use new vocabulary learned through reading and across the curriculum  
• are having difficulty with comprehension both with oral language and reading  
• do not develop more specific and nuanced language over time, e.g., from saying or writing ‘large’ to ‘gigantic’  
• have difficulty with applying morphemes e.g., bigger, biggest  
• overapply morphemes to change word meanings, e.g., wented instead of went  
• are decoding without understanding what they are reading. 

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Students identified as needing support with building morphological awareness and vocabulary will need explicit, small group, targeted teaching in addition to classroom instruction.  

For your target group, select vocabulary they will need for their upcoming lessons. You could select words according to the three-tier approach to vocabulary:  

• Tier one words are those mostly used in everyday language.  
• Tier two words are more specific words often used in more academic/school contexts but are not domain specific. These are words with multiple meanings and students need to infer those meanings from the context. They allow us to describe concepts in a more detailed manner. Often these are words children are exposed to through storybook reading.  
• Tier three words are domain specific words (for example, morphology). 

When selecting vocabulary for targeted teaching, it is most likely that the best approach is to focus on high value tier two and three words that will support students with classroom learning. However, you may have some students who also need support with targeted teaching of tier 1 words, such as English language learners or students with language related learning challenges. You can build on rich read alouds and your vocabulary teaching during your universal teaching to provide students in your targeted teaching vocabulary group with additional and multiple opportunities to engage with the new words in varied contexts. Help them make connections between their new vocabulary word and other words they already know and relate the word to their own experiences.   

In your small group targeting vocabulary teaching you could:  

• explicitly teach how morphemes are used in text to change meaning  
• explain the meaning of each morpheme and how to apply them to different words  
• provide repetition and practice to identify and manipulate morphemes through activities like word sorts, sentence building, and word-building games   
• pre-teach vocabulary prior to whole class reading or topic work  
• explicitly teach definitions – include a picture, synonyms, and a sentence with the word in context for additional support, e.g., anchor chart (see image below)  
• make connections with students’ home languages and prior knowledge  
• include multiple opportunities for students to practice and revisit taught vocabulary.  

The benefit of small group instruction is that you can give immediate feedback that reinforces correct use of vocabulary and corrects errors. 

Teaching example of planning 

Matua Thomas has noticed a group of his year 2 students are reliant on using a limited range of words in their writing and oral language to describe characters and their features. Despite explicit vocabulary instruction for the whole class and access to vocabulary anchor charts, this group of students continues to rely on basic words such as "little", "nice", and "old" rather than using more precise vocabulary.  

He has designed a week-long targeted teaching sequence, with five 15-minute lessons, to support students to be more precise and specific in their word choices.   

The slides below are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Reading fluency is the ability to read texts with appropriate accuracy, pace, and expression. Fluency develops as students build automatic word recognition through orthographic mapping, allowing them to process words quickly and efficiently. Fluency enables students to concentrate on more advanced comprehension skills.    

Identifying students  

Listening to students read during lessons will help you notice and recognise those who require targeted support to develop their reading fluency. When reading sentences, passages, and texts out loud, dysfluent readers will show some or all the following characteristics:  

• slow, laboured reading with frequent stops  
• inaccurate decoding of unfamiliar words  
• unrelated groupings of words  
• limited or no expression   
• limited number of words they can read automatically   
• inability to remember words they have previously read  
• poor comprehension.  

An Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment can help identify students who are not meeting oral reading fluency rates appropriate for their year level. You can compare students’ words-correct-per minute scores (WCPM) to oral reading fluency norms for their year level to determine if their fluency rates are above, at, or below expectations.   

ORF assessments act as a thermometer, signalling reading difficulties but not diagnosing the cause. Students with less than 95% accuracy or below-year-level fluency norms need further assessment to determine the underlying issue.  

• If a student struggles with phonics, phonemic awareness, or vocabulary, targeted support in these areas is needed.  
• If they can decode but read slowly or inconsistently, fluency should be the focus of instruction.  

For more information on ORF assessments, see the section in tab 1 “Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching.   

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Targeted teaching to accelerate reading fluency should focus on helping students read with at least 95% decoding accuracy at a conversational pace with suitable expression. Students will have different needs at different ages. The following table uses the English learning area teaching sequence to help you identify when to provide targeted teaching in reading fluency.    

Word grid

Teaching example of planning 

At Summit View School, Miriama, a year 2 teacher, carried out an ORF assessment and noticed that five students had low WCPM scores but read year level texts with 95%+ accuracy and could comprehend the text. This assessment information indicates that the students could accurately decode using their phonics knowledge but needed support to develop their reading rate and phrasing. Miriama planned a 4-week teaching programme for this group of students. Targeted lessons follow on from whole class phonics teaching and use the strategy of repeated reading to improve fluency.   

What is repeated reading?  

Repeated reading is when a student reads a passage or short text multiple times in one session. The text is usually short, taking 1-2 minutes to read, and contains between 50 and 200 words. The goal is for students to read year level texts, including those previously read in lessons, with at least 95% accuracy.  

For effective repeated reading, each lesson should include:    

• teacher modelling of fluent reading  
• previewing of difficult words before reading  
• positive feedback and corrective guidance from the teacher  
• goal setting, progress reinforcement, and encouragement of self-monitoring  
• support for students to focus on phrasing to enhance meaning  
• opportunities for students to read the same text at least four times or similar texts for varied practice.  

Some fluency instruction methods include using a timer, where students are challenged to read as many words as possible within a set time (usually one or two minutes). Alternatively, the time it takes to read a passage or list of words may be measured (Stevens et al., 2017).   

However, it’s important to note that faster reading isn’t always better, as fluency should be balanced with accuracy and expression. Adapt your targeted support to be responsive to meet the individual needs and progress of each student. 

The slides below are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Understanding sentence structure is key for reading and writing. While many students start school speaking in sentences, writing them requires a complex combination of more formal skills, like handwriting, phonemic awareness, and vocabulary. As these skills develop, students free up more working memory to focus on creating clear and coherent sentences to communicate their ideas.  

Oral language is foundational for sentence structure. Oral language is less formal than written language. Most students will encounter and practice different sentence types, such as simple, compound, and complex, as they speak and listen before they read and write. Understanding a range of sentence structures is fundamental for reading comprehension and to help students write clearly (Ministry of Education, 2024, p. 55). 

Identifying students 

Use the sentence structure teaching sequence statements in the English learning area to identify students needing additional support.   

Indicators  

In writing:  

• incomplete or fragmented sentences  
• missing words or incorrect word order  
• incorrect or inconsistent use of punctuation.   

In oral language:  

• difficulties forming complete oral sentences in class or one-on-one conversations  
• challenges expressing ideas clearly and fluently.  

In reading:   

• difficulty recognising sentence structures and where sentences start and end  
• misreading or ignoring punctuation when reading aloud  
• difficulty maintaining and holding meaning between and across sentences.  

Use assessments such as writing samples, oral reading fluency (ORF), observations, and oral language assessments to pinpoint specific challenges. For more detailed information, see the section in tab 1 “Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching”. 

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Sentence instruction should follow a step-by-step, structured approach, moving from simple to complex sentences (Haynes et al., 2019). Targeted group lessons should include clear modelling and scaffolded practice, reinforcing foundational skills while systematically providing more support and practice with new concepts for those students who need additional support.  

The following table uses the English learning area teaching sequence to help you identify when to provide targeted teaching in sentence structure.  

Teaching example of planning 

Miss Henry, a year 1 teacher, notices that in some student writing samples they are having difficulty with simple sentences. Their sentences are fragmented with full stops used incorrectly. The students can speak in simple sentences during conversations, demonstrating foundational language skills. Additionally, the teaching sequence statements in the English learning area and the school phonics and spelling scope and sequences indicate that their decoding and spelling abilities are appropriate for their year level. Miss Henry believes the students need more syntactical support to form and punctuate complete sentences.  

Miss Henry knows the teaching sequence statements during the first year of school are to teach students to:   

• use simple sentences in writing  
• correctly use full stops and capital letters, with some support.   

She plans a four-week targeted support group, using scaffolded sentence building and sentence frame activities to support her students to write simple sentences correctly. These lessons build on class learning and provide targeted practice focused specifically on addressing gaps in syntax and punctuation.   

The slides below are best viewed full screen. To do this, select the three dots on the bottom left, then select Enter full screen. 

Reading comprehension is the goal of reading instruction. If students have difficulty with either word recognition or language comprehension, then overall comprehension of a text can be affected.  

In the English learning area, the comprehension sub strand is made up of several focus areas (see the English Phase 1 pp. 56-61) that support students to make sense of and respond to texts. 

Identifying students  

You might initially notice students having difficulty:  

• with reading fluency, and skills like re-reading to check for meaning  
• retelling a story in sequence  
• making simple predictions  
• asking and answering questions from and about the text  
• identifying main events and key messages, summarising, drawing conclusions, and making inferences.   

Use the English learning area teaching sequences to help with what to notice. These, along with observation and diagnostic skills assessment will guide your plan for targeted teaching to accelerate progress.   

In phase 1 some students may need support with decoding, building vocabulary, and reading fluency (accuracy, pace, and expression). When these skills are developing, the increased cognitive load can impact comprehension. Use the other sections of this resource to plan targeted support in areas of need, which will help with developing comprehension. 

Assessment to inform teaching 

Your school wide universal testing will alert you to students who are not progressing as expected. While the ORF test does not directly assess comprehension, fluency and comprehension are strongly correlated. If a student’s fluency is low, it can indicate comprehension difficulty, because the student is focusing on decoding rather than meaning. Look at both accuracy and fluency and carry out further diagnostic skills assessment and observation to identify specific area/s of need affecting comprehension. See the section in tab 1 “Identifying students and their specific needs for targeted teaching” for more detailed information.

Targeted teaching to accelerate progress 

Students' prior knowledge and vocabulary knowledge affect comprehension. Spending time with students to build their conceptual understanding and vocabulary benefits their reading and listening comprehension.  

For those students needing additional support, as you revisit or reteach lessons:  

• re-read the same text multiple times, first focusing on decoding, and then on making meaning  
• break reading down into smaller steps to reduce cognitive load, improve retention, and support understanding 
• explore and explicitly teach features in texts that support meaning making, like visuals, predictable text structures, and familiar topics  
• use multiple texts with similar features or content to reinforce understanding. 

Comprehension  

Before reading 

• Provide targeted pre-teaching of vocabulary and conceptual background knowledge connected with your topic, prior to your reading lessons. Develop and routinely refer to a word wall, with pictures and definitions of new vocabulary. See the section above “Building vocabulary and morphology knowledge” for more detail. To scaffold and provide additional practice, use tools like:  
  • concept sorts – provide a list of terms from a text and ask students to categorise based on meaning; this assesses prior knowledge and familiarises upcoming vocabulary 
  • word maps – select new vocabulary words from a text and have students answer: “What is it?”, “What is it like?”, and “What are some examples?” Encourage them to use synonyms, antonyms, personal definitions, illustrations, and example sentences.  
• Intentionally introduce and discuss new information. Support students to make connections to their previous experiences and related knowledge using analogies and think-alouds (e.g., “This reminds me of ...”, “Think of a time when you ...”). 

During reading 

• Use think-alouds and modelling to demonstrate making meaning from the text, e.g., re-reading and asking questions such as “Did that make sense?”, “What do you think this word means?” or “Can you explain what just happened in the story?”  
• Identify sentences or passages where students need to make inferences. Model finding clues in the text with think-alouds and prompt questions.  
• Longer complex sentences containing more information place pressure on working memory (Scott, 2009). When students struggle to comprehend sentences:  
  • deconstruct and analyse sentences to make meaning, for example, use paper-based sentences to physically manipulate and identify sentence parts  
  • break complex sentences into components and work out their meaning  
  • paraphrase sentences to confirm understanding.  
• Teach word functions. Ask students a series of questions about a sentence, for example: “Our wet, hairy dog crawled under my bed during the thunderstorm.”   
  • Ask who or what did it? Dog (looking for the namer/noun – the who/what)  
  • Ask what did it do? Crawled (looking for the action word/verb – the do)  
  • Ask how many, what kind, which one? Wet, hairy (looking for adjectives describing the namer)
  • Ask where, when, how, why? Under the bed, during the thunderstorm (for more detail, see Literacyhow).  
• Repeatedly read sentences aloud with proper expression to support meaning-making. For more information, see the section above “Building reading fluency”.  
• One of the most powerful supports for comprehension is the ability to summarise text (National Reading Panel, 2000). Use a gist statement template along with additional explicit step-by-step instruction in targeted teaching groups to model how to identify main ideas and turn them into a gist statement. The following can help scaffold students through this process. 
  • Guide students to answer key questions – Who or what? Did what? When/Where? Why/How?  
  • Model how to synthesise the elements into a single sentence, e.g., “Kiwi hunt for worms and insects at night using their whisker-like feathers to help them navigate in the dark.” 
  • Demonstrate how to clarify and summarise by thinking aloud, e.g., “So, to summarise, the main character went on an adventure, faced some challenges, and then returned home safely.”  
  • Provide sentence starters or prompts to help students practice summarising.  
  • Monitor progress and adapt teaching to meet students' needs.   
• Ask questions about the text. This helps students to reflect on specific content and make connections across ideas within the text. Use an explicit instruction framework, model the process, and provide scaffolded question prompts. 

After reading 

• Provide additional explicit instruction and opportunities to practice summarising what they have read and applying their knowledge of new vocabulary through turn and talk discussions. Use a graphic organiser to scaffold ordering and grouping information, ideas, or concepts from a text.   

Understanding text structure  

Teaching students to recognise and use common text structures – such as narrative (beginning, middle, end) and informational (description, sequence, cause-effect) – enhances their ability to understand and recall information (National Reading Panel, 2000 & Duke and Pearson, 2002).  

• Provide visual reminders of text features, e.g., headings indicate the main topic of each section.  
• Explicitly teach signal words (e.g., first, because, finally) to help students identify text patterns and improve comprehension.  
• Use graphic organisers to scaffold comprehension of text structure. Visually map story elements, model how to identify key features through interactive read-alouds.  
• Teach word functions using questions, such as:  
  • Who or what did it? (namer/noun)  
  • What did it do? (action/verb)  
  • How many, what kind, which one? (adjectives describing the noun)  
  • Where, when, how, why? (adverbs that describe the action). 

Strategies for teacher-read text 

Teacher read-alouds are essential for comprehension as they model fluent reading, introduce new vocabulary in context, and provide opportunities for students to engage in discussions that build background knowledge and critical thinking skills. Teacher read-alouds during targeted teaching mean that students are not limited by their decoding skills when developing their comprehension. While this is important for universal teaching at this phase of learning as well, it is crucial for students who need targeted support for their decoding.  

Plan to stop at key points and “think-aloud” questions and answers, modelling what good readers do. For students needing additional support:  

• select texts with supportive features (e.g., visuals, predictable structures, familiar topics)  
• use multiple texts with similar features to reinforce understanding  
• pause during read-alouds to ask questions that encourage students to clarify their understanding (e.g. “What do you think this word means?” or “Can you explain what just happened in the story?”)  
• model and encourage students to summarise text using guided questioning, encourage them to focus on the main events or ideas. 

Teaching example of planning 

At Summit View School, Whaea Leah, a year 3 teacher, noticed some of her students struggled to respond to questions and identify key information in their topic texts. She observed their responses to her questioning and ability to make predictions during read-alouds. She also investigated if they were reading with fluency (accuracy, pace, and expression) and did some further diagnostic skills assessments to identify any difficulties with decoding. She found some students needed further vocabulary knowledge, while others were primarily focusing on decoding the text, so were having difficulty making meaning.  

Whaea Leah selected texts to support knowledge building with their science unit on seeds. She planned targeted small group teaching that involved re-reading the selected texts multiple times. She worked on reading one text per week with students, keeping the lessons short, with lots of revision and practice. She did this for each text over their five-week unit on growing seeds.   

• Days 1:   
  • Frontload vocabulary with the target group prior to reading a text with the class.  
  • Re-read the text and focus on decoding skills with the target group following the lesson.  
• Days 2-4: Targeted teaching with her target group to re-read the text, revise vocabulary, and focus on making meaning and identifying text features. 

AIM Institute for Learning & Research. (2021). Quick guide for reading assessment.  

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