Heather du Plessis-Allan: Jan Tinetti has a battle ahead of her to improve how we teach reading

If Jan Tinetti changes the way we teach kids to read in the way she's hinting she might do, I will rate her as one of the most important ministers in this Government, just for doing the right thing and for the consequence of that.

We’ve been having a debate for years now about what the heck is going wrong with our kids’ ability to read in this country. It used to be that Kiwi kids led the world in reading. Now almost half of our kids are below their expected reading level when they finish primary school.

Increasing numbers of academics, teachers and schools are blaming the way we teach kids to read because we stopped teaching phonics (which is sounding out the letters to make the word) and increasing numbers of them want to go back to teaching phonics like New South Wales has.

Jan Tinetti has just hinted that we might do that. She appeared on Q+A yesterday and made it very clear the evidence points to phonics – or a related form of learning called structured literacy — being the best approach. That hints very strongly that that is what she wants to roll out to schools when she starts developing the new reading curriculum later this year.

She’s got a battle ahead of her. Not all teachers are on board with phonics. There are a lot out there who are deeply committed to teaching the whole language approach instead and they will resist. Jan Tinetti knows it. She says she’s ready for the backlash.

I hope she sticks to her guns because teaching our kids to read properly is so important to their engagement in school and their futures. Sometimes a kid learning to read or not is the difference between them having a successful life or dropping out of school and causing trouble.

If Jan Tinetti does this and if she lifts our kids’ reading rates, I’d be prepared to forgive this government a lot of the things they do wrong because this is one of the most important things to get right.

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