KEY POINTS:
Struggling students have made twice the progress of others in a ground-breaking literacy project and are catching up to their peers, research has found.
The finding is among those due to be announced today about the $3.8 million-a-year project by Education Minister Chris Carter.
It is particularly significant because of the big disparity in literacy levels in New Zealand, which see top-performing students ranking among the best in the world but low achievers among the worst in the OECD.
The country's bottom 20 per cent tend to lag at least two years behind their peers in reading and writing.
But those bottom students made double the progress of other students in the literacy development initiative and began catching up to the average.
According to the new findings, other "at risk" student groups also saw significant gains.
Although researchers said there was still room for improvement, Pasifika pupils at the selected primary and intermediate schools made more progress than average and boys started to catch up to the achievement of girls.
Under the world-leading project, called the Literacy Professional Development Project, experts go into selected schools for two years and build teachers' knowledge of how to teach reading and writing.
It was piloted in 91 schools nationally in 2004, expanding to a further 127 schools two years later. This year, it started in more than 150.
University of Auckland education faculty Professor Helen Timperley, a researcher and developer on the project, said it taught teachers methods that seemed to work particularly well in getting through to struggling students.
"It's being explicit about the things they need to learn and how to do things rather than sort of hoping that they'd get it," she said.
"For students who are struggling, you need to let them into the secret of what reading and writing is about."
Mr Carter said the results from the second cohort were "very, very pleasing" and again showed the difference effective teaching could make.
"That such significant gains are being made by students at risk of the lowest achievement levels is exactly what we hoped to see," he said.
Mr Carter said studies showed New Zealand's literacy was the best in the English speaking world.
"It's lifting the other end of the spectrum up. This programme seems to be really effective at doing that."
HELP SCHEME
The Literacy Professional Development Project:
* About 25 experts nationally go into selected schools to teach teachers how best to raise literacy.
* Part of the method is to be explicit about what is being taught and why, rather than hoping pupils "get it".
* Costs $3.8 million a year and involves facilitators going into a group of schools for two years at a time.
* Has already run in more than 200 schools since it was first piloted in 2004 and it started in a third group this year.
