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An Auckland academic is calling for summer school for children as young as 6 in poor areas, after new research found they lagged behind peers from more affluent suburbs.
Massey University literacy education professor Tom Nicholson released findings of a study of 130 Year 1 pupils at schools in low, middle and high socioeconomic areas.
It found the 5-year-olds at decile 10 schools significantly outperformed the pupils at decile 1 schools in reading and spelling.
In a test of their ability to read words, the pupils from the higher socioeconomic areas had a mean score of 21.95 words, or a reading age of 6 years and 3 months.
Those from the lower socio-economic areas had a mean score of 6.96 words, which was closer to a reading age of five years.
Dr Nicholson said he had hoped the gap between rich and poor would have closed but the latest results found similar trends to his research a decade ago.
In 1997, his study showed students from poorer areas took a year to get to the level of alphabet recognition students from richer areas had when they started school.
"There is no level playing field when children start school in different parts of the country," said Dr Nicholson, just returned from an international reading and writing conference in Norway.
"It's unreasonable to expect that teachers on their own in classrooms are going to be able to close that gap."
A Ministry of Education spokesman said the issues were central to the ministry's work, particularly in the goal of "raising achievement and reducing disparity".
The Government's decile funding system was designed to target schools with a higher proportion of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, who were more likely to havegreater learning needs.
But Dr Nicholson, co-director of the Centre for Educational Research on Children's Literacy, called for more to be done outside the classroom.
He wanted more explicit instruction at preschools in low socio-economic areas to teach reading basics.
He said students in need should get one-on-one time after hours and during the holidays, providing more direct instruction than homework programmes some schools ran.
Dr Nicholson said a separate study had shown the skills of pupils in poorer areas could slip six months during the summer break.
International literature indicated this "summer slide" was not as big for children in richer areas, he said.
"The really top end of the market will probably go home and read books and study," said Dr Nicholson. "But the ones who are struggling are going to go home and avoid academics."
Last summer holidays, more than 100 children from several schools went to a maths and reading summer school programme Dr Nicholson helped to run at Flat Bush School in Otara.
Flat Bush School principal Pat Chamley said the drop off usually seen after the holidays was reduced.
Bairds Mainfreight Primary School principal Suzanne Billington said the short sessions were based around sound teaching and reinforced concepts explored during the term.
"You've got to remember that kids need a break from school too," said Ms Billington. "But this is not all day, every day. It's a block of time."
Harlee Leitu said the summer school sessions of about 30 minutes a day got son Afa, 9, away from his computer games and increased his interest in reading, while daughter Patricia, 8, enjoyed the extra maths lessons.
Emily Mafile'o said her son Emil Mafile'o-Wehipeihana, 10, was initially very reluctant to go to reading tuition over summer but came around once he started to improve.
