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Ngā Kete Kōrero: A framework for assigning levels of difficulty to existing and new Māori reading resources

Mere Berryman, Cath Rau, and Ted Glynn
Abstract: 

Ngā Kete Kōrero (The Language Baskets), a national research study commissioned by the Ministry of Māori Development Te Puni Kōkiri in 1993, has provided comprehensive information about the development of appropriate language assessment and teaching resources. It will help teachers to accurately identify levels of language and literacy in Māori and thus better inform teaching practice in this sector. This article outlines specific aspects of the Kete Kōrero Framework project and discusses some of the implications for teaching reading through the medium of Māori.

Journal issue: 

Ngā Kete Kōrero
A framework for assigning levels of difficulty to existing and new Māori reading resources

Images

Mere Berryman Images Specialist Education Services, Poutama Pounamu Research Centre

Cath Rau Images Kia Ata Mai Education Trust

Ted Glynn Images University of Waikato

Māori are increasingly and actively seeking the revitalisation and retention of their language at an iwi (tribal), hapu (sub-tribal), whānau (extended family), and individual level (Smith, 1995). For the past twenty years, the kōhanga reo movement has led an increasing number of people both to learn in and teach through the medium of Māori language. Whānau (family members) of kōhanga reo graduates started the wave of Māori medium education in primary schooling.

Today the resurgence of Māori language is occurring at all levels of the educational sector, from preschool through to tertiary. From the early 1990s this movement has seen growth in Māori bilingual and immersion education, particularly in the urban areas where many Māori are now living (Keegan, 1996). In 1998, more than 30,000 students were reported to be experiencing a level of education through the medium of Māori, with more than 8,000 in Level One immersion programmes (where 81% to 100% of the programme is taught in Māori) (Ministry of Education, 1998).

The Ministry of Education’s shift in policy direction has enabled Māori language to be taught as the centre of the learning process and as the medium for delivery of the entire curriculum, rather than as a separate subject within it (Ministry of Education, 1998). The development of Māori medium and kura kaupapa Māori education has focused on two objectives:

•&&Promoting higher levels of achievement for Māori students

•&&Promoting the revitalisation and maintenance of the Māori language (Education Review Office, 1995).

Contemporary Māori education initiatives now include well over 400 kōhanga reo, approximately 40 kura kaupapa Māori, four whare kura (Māori secondary schools) and three whare wānanga (Māori tertiary institutions). In 1997, as a result of both kaupapa Māori initiatives and changes in education policy, almost 15% of all Māori students were receiving between 31% and 100% of their curriculum instruction time in Māori. A further 18% were studying the Māori language for at least three hours per week in their general classroom setting (Ministry of Education, 1998).

The growth in Māori language learning and teaching programmes has highlighted the need for research in Māori medium contexts and for appropriate resource development. For the first decade, the development of appropriate resources struggled to keep pace with the demand. Schools operating immersion in Māori reading programmes had to supplement their resources by pasting translated texts into books with English texts. Although this method tends to compromise quality in terms of presentation, it did allow schools to provide material for children that fostered the local dialect, and it filled a perceived gap in the quantity of resources available, particularly for the beginning stages of learning to read (Rau, 1998).

In recent years, the number of resources available in Māori aimed at the junior school reader has increased. Traditionally, many of these reading resources have been Māori translations of texts published in English. Now Learning Media and Huia Publishers, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education, are the major source of original material in Māori for schools. Many more texts are now written and illustrated by Māori, specifically for students working in Māori language contexts.

However, since Benton’s Bilingual Education Programmes Evaluation report (Benton, 1985), there has been very little research into the Māori language outcomes of Māori medium education, or into the development of appropriate language assessment and teaching resources that will help teachers to identify levels of language and literacy accurately in Māori, and thus better inform teaching practice in this sector. Nor has there been any nationally accepted method of organising Māori reading texts into increasing levels of difficulty, as there is for English texts. The Ready To Read series (Learning Media) uses a colour wheel to indicate difficulty level, and other publishers use comparable alternatives. Knowledge of children’s performance on specific well-known reading texts provides teachers with a ready professional understanding of where the children ‘are at’ in their reading. It can also serve as a guide to selecting new texts for children to read. This helps teachers to monitor their children’s reading performance and progress.

Ngā Kete Kōrero Initiative

Ngā Kete Kōrero (The Language Baskets), a national research study (Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team,1 1996) commissioned by the Ministry of Māori Development Te Puni Kōkiri in 1993, was a major step forward in this area.2 When work began, professionally published and commonly available texts available for use in junior Māori language reading programmes comprised just 23 titles.

As part of its work, the Framework Team developed a procedure for identifying and assessing the difficulty levels of children’s books for reading instruction written in Māori. The levelling procedure was needed both to differentiate the levels of difficulty of Māori language reading texts currently in use, and to classify new texts as they were produced.

The project work resulted in the assigning of Māori symbols to show the four distinct kete or stages of reading achievement:

1.&&Kete Harakeke (emergent)

2.&&Kete Kiekie (early reading)

3.&&Kete Pīngao (early fluency)

4.&&Miro (fluency).

Miro is the thread that ties the three kete together and represents the fluent reading stage. At this stage, the reader is able to make use of all the reading strategies that have been previously learned, and is able to read successfully a full range of reading materials.

Images

Each kete or stage of reading is further divided into several levels, as shown in the chart below. Vowels (a, e, i, o) are used to represent each of the levels within each reading stage.




Kete Harakeke (KH)

Emergent

(KHa)

(KHe)

(KHi)

Kete Kiekie (KK)

Early Reading

(KKa)

(KKe)

(KKi)

Kete Pīngao (KP)

Early Fluency

(KPa)

(KPe)

(KPi)

(KPo)

Miro (M)

Fluency

Establishing levels of difficulty for texts

Cluster groups were established among 15 schools in Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Wellington, and an initial Māori Language Text inventory was developed. Teachers were asked to:

•&&identify all Māori language texts currently in use in their classrooms for junior Māori reading programmes

•&&state how they used each of these texts, and which were most useful

•&&identify which were their favourites, and which were favourites with their children

•&&suggest particular text features and characteristics that they believed contributed to the make-up of a good Māori language reading text.

This information enabled the Framework Team to develop a Checklist of Māori Language Text Features. These included personal and cultural factors such as story lines that the readers were interested in and knowledgeable about, as well as the physical layout of the material, size and use of font, language structure, punctuation, use of illustrations and density of concepts. The checklist was used to identify those books that class teachers indicated as having the most appropriate text features.

From this group of books, the Framework Team teachers selected the eight “benchmark” books judged most suitable for ranking in order of difficulty. Further work was required to discriminate more effectively among books placed at levels 6, 7, and 8 (i.e. where fluent reading was beginning to emerge). An overall mean grade level was then assigned for every available reading text. A complex formula for linguistic analysis, based on word type and word frequency, as well as a number of related factors, placed the original set of eight “benchmark” texts in exactly the same order of difficulty.

Reading behaviours observed during Ngā Kete Kōrero book trials

These behaviours, observed during the Ngā Kete Kōrero book trials, might be expected in children as they progress from being emergent readers of Māori (reading books at the Kete Harakeke levels) to the fluency stage (Miro). The observed behaviours are of course quite similar to those observed in children learning to read in English, as described in Reading in Junior Classes (Department of Education, 1985) and Developing Life-long Readers (Mooney, 1988). However, it was important for this project to highlight those behaviours that may be particularly pertinent for the Māori immersion situation, so those teachers could be aware of them and respond appropriately.

Images

1. Harakeke – emergent reading

This stage was often characterised by children initially reading texts using their own words, as they attempted to interpret the writer’s message while using the illustrations to guide them. Sometimes it seemed that they might have simply memorised sentences and were not using the information in the print to get the message. However, this may not always have been the case. It is not easy to tell from observation of children’s reading of simple sentences exactly which cues they have or have not attended to.

Reading for meaning appeared to be one important strategy that often led to a conflict with responding to the visual text cues. For instance, children provided more words than were actually printed on the page, in their desire to make sure that what they read was making sense. Children’s knowledge of the structure of the Māori language also became obvious at this level. More often than not, this knowledge is reflected in their ability to speak Māori. A less competent speaker of Māori was more likely to make “grammatical” errors when reading material from memory, for example.

2. Kiekie – early reading

This stage is characterised by other skills gradually being added to the reader’s repertoire. These skills allow the child to decode and interpret text messages that are becoming increasingly more complex, as well as increasing in length. These skills develop further with experience and practice, and as the child’s proficiency in the Māori language increases. At this stage, the children began to recognise letters (visual cues) and link these to the sounds in speech with increasing efficiency. Teachers can expect children to be using these visual cues to assist them to “work out” unfamiliar words, and also to check and confirm that what they “read” is what the author actually wrote.

3. Pīngao – early fluency

In this stage, because of the phonemic regularity of the Māori language, children quickly learn to decode written words. This behaviour was exemplified at the early fluency stage by syllabification behaviours or the breaking up of words into sound clusters. It appeared that at this stage, children could “read” practically anything printed in Māori.

However, it must not be assumed that children’s ability to comprehend what is being read develops at the same rate as their ability to decode text. The challenge for teachers, therefore, is to ensure that children acquire a range of strategies for unlocking meaning from text.

Because of the phonemic regularity of the Māori language, it is important to ensure from the beginning that at every stage, children learn to approach reading as understanding messages. Otherwise merely decoding words may dominate reading for meaning.

4. Miro – fluency

By the time children reached this stage, they had developed a range of strategies to assist them with reading. These strategies appeared to give the child greater control over the reading process, and allowed them to select, employ, integrate and interchange a range of cues and strategies for a variety of purposes and with a variety of texts.

The syllabification of words was less evident at this stage, as children were usually efficient fluent oral readers of Māori. Again, the question of their ability to understand and talk about what they have read becomes an important factor in determining the suitability of material for the reader.

Images

Placing existing texts into the Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework

Any unlevelled Junior Māori reading text can now be compared with the benchmark books in order to establish the most likely placement on to the Kete Kōrero framework, by using the procedure outlined in the flow-chart below.

Teacher comments

The following comments have been made by teachers who are using the Ngā Kete Kōrero levelling system as part of their school reading programme:

•&&I can be more specific about my children’s progress.

•&&It showed up the lack of shared readers and other readers for beginning reading and for reading at the fluency stage.

•&&It was time consuming but very worthwhile sitting and sorting out the readers from school-translated material into the Ngā Kete Kōrero framework.

•&&I have worked with the English levelling system but have found Ngā Kete Kōrero a more gradual progression for children in immersion.

•&&We can start to talk on common ground with other teachers from other schools.

•&&Up until now it has been hit and miss getting the correct book for teaching that child. I could only rummage through books to make on-the-spot decisions.

•&&At least now I know that when I go to the Ngā Kete Kōrero levels they will suit my children’s needs.

Further research on levels

Research is currently being undertaken to develop a range of teaching emphases for each of the reading stages. This research has further highlighted the implications of the lack of continuing opportunities from birth to listen and participate in Māori language contexts for most readers. For these readers, the oral Māori language base upon which they can begin to process texts successfully is not in place before they come to school. It is crucial that they have opportunities for their oral Māori language base to develop at school.

For many reasons, including the much greater exposure of children to English language rather than Māori language, parents and teachers must not necessarily expect that their Māori medium pupils will be at the same stage of preparedness for reading as their English medium counterparts, because this pre-reading stage has not taken place. While the need for this pre-reading stage prior to the first level of emergent reading, Kete Harakeke a (KHa), has always been recognised, its importance has not been fully appreciated.

When children without an adequate oral language base were given emergent books to read, their oral language base was soon outstripped by the numbers of words that they were meeting in print. Therefore they quickly began to face difficulties in talking about what they had read. For this reason, Harakeke has now been separated out and highlighted as a pre-reading stage that must occur before the commencement of KHa, KHe and KHi.

At the other end of the continuum, Miro (fluency) has been further divided into two stages, Miro and Whatu. Research to extend the framework into levels for these stages is being undertaken.

Producing more resources for junior reading in Māori

In 1995, top on the list of priorities identified by Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework project participants was the production of quantity and quality written resources covering a wide range of subjects, and produced specifically for the purpose of developing reading skills (Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team, 1995). In 1997 the Ministry began its plan to increase the number of Māori publications over the next two years, through a joint venture between Learning Media and Huia Publishers, also called Ngā Kete Kōrero (reading package). This package has resulted in over 60 basic readers at the emergent, early fluency and fluency levels, 10 blown up books, five recreational readers, 10 waiata cards and tapes, as well as two teacher handbooks and one video, Ko Tōku Reo Tōku Ora, on teaching reading through the medium of Māori.

Using the Framework for reading resources

Ngā Kete Kōrero has now successfully levelled all nationally published junior Māori readers into levels of increasing difficulty. Initially, book stickers featuring the kete symbols were designed to identify the placement of these readers within the framework.

There has been an undertaking from the publishers of Ngā Kete Kōrero resources to fit all new readers into the Framework. In the future, it is hoped that all publishers of material in Māori designed for use in junior classrooms will adopt the Framework, and include the Framework symbols when printing. The Literacy Task Force Group (1999) also recommended this.

A recommendation was also made that new text materials be trialled with teachers and children before they are finally published. This would allow teachers to have a say in what they feel is needed in effective reading material, as well as having input into its appropriate placement for instructional purposes. Huia Publishers have continued to follow this recommendation in their publication of Ngā Kete Kōrero readers.

Spreading the benefits more widely

The second priority identified was the need for quality pre- and in-service training specifically designed for teachers in Māori language programmes, and the need to continue research into the development of appropriate assessment practices for Māori immersion programmes.

Ngā Kete Kōrero brought the further development and trial of three assessment procedures, ngā pūkete pānui haere (running records), iti rearea (three-minute assessments), and whakapūaki māramatanga (comprehension probes). These procedures were able to identify measures of reading accuracy, rate and comprehension in the context of reading in Māori at the emergent, early or fluent stages.

The research showed that the procedures could be very usefully employed by junior Māori medium classroom teachers in a formative (to inform teaching practice by assessing existing knowledge or skills) or summative (to indicate outcomes of particular lessons or interventions) manner.

In 1999, the Ministry of Education funded a professional development contract in Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework and assessment procedures, enabling the benefits to begin to reach a small group of Māori medium teachers. Also urgently required is provision for both in-service and pre-service training, in order to sustain a base level of knowledge of the principles of teaching reading through Māori within all classrooms. This needs to continue in a planned and comprehensive way, in order to reach effectively the many teachers who have not been able to access the initial training workshops.

The team approach used in this project also provided a successful model for the development of other research into key areas of Māori immersion education. Teaming academic knowledge with practising teacher knowledge and skills was a valuable combination.

While the Ngā Kete Kōrero project has done much to advance the cause of Māori language literacy programmes in the formative years of schooling, much remains to be accomplished within the education system, in terms of policy, research and professional development, to enable learners and teachers in Māori immersion programmes to achieve outputs equal to those of their mainstream colleagues.

References

Benton, R. A. (1985). Bilingual Education Programmes Evaluation Project 1984-85: Final Report. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Benton, R. A. (1993). The Māori language needs of Te Kōhanga Reo. Report prepared for the Chief Executive, Ministry of Māori Development, Wellington.

Department of Education (1985). Reading in junior classes: with guidelines to the Revised Ready to Read Series. Wellington: Department of Education.

Education Review Office (1995). Kura Kaupapa Māori. Wellington: Education Review Office.

Glynn, T., Berryman, M., Bidois, P., Furlong, M., Thatcher, J., Walker, R., and Atvars, K. (1996). Bilingual reading gains for tutors and tutees in a Māori reading programme. In He Paepae Kōrero: Research perspectives in Māori education. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Education Research.

Keegan, P. (1996). The benefits of immersion education. Wellington: NZCER.

Ministry of Education. (1998). Education statistics of New Zealand 1997. Wellington: Data Management Unit, Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education, (1999). Report of the Literacy Task Force. Wellington: Learning Media.

Māori Education Commission (1999). Report Four to The Ministry of Māori Affairs. Wellington: Māori Education Commission.

Mooney, M. (1988). Developing life-long readers. Wellington: Department of Education.

Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team (1995). Ngā Kete Kōrero policy project report. Working draft 1. Wellington: Ministry of Māori Development.

Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team (1996a). Ngā Kete Kōrero policy project report. Final report. Wellington: Ministry of Māori Development.

Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team (1996b). Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework teacher handbook: A framework for organising junior Māori reading texts. Wellington: Huia Publishers.

Rau, C. (1998). He Mātai āta Titiro Ki Te Tūtukitanga Mātātupu Pānui, Tuhi. Pukapuka Matua. The Māori Reconstruction of An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement by Marie Clay. Ngaruawahia: Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust.

Smith, G. H. (1995). Whakaoho Whānau. New formations of whānau as an innovative intervention into Māori cultural and education crises. He Pukenga Kōrero. 1 (1), pp.18-36.

Te Puni Kōkiri (1998). Making education work for Māori; Te Whakamahi i te Mātauranga mō te iwi Māori. Report in consultation. Te Porongo mō ngā whakawhiti whakaaro. Wellington: Te Puni Kokiri.

Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga (1996). Te Reo Māori i Roto i Te Marautanga O Aotearoa. Te Whanganui-ā-Tara: Te Pou Taki Kōrero.

Notes

1&&&The Kete Kōrero Framework Team consisted of Hineihaea Murphy (Te Taura Whiri) as project manager, working together with Alva Kapa (Dunedin College of Education), Richard Benton (New Zealand Council for Educational Research), Ted Glynn (University of Otago), Rawiri Hindle (Petone Central School), Cath Rau (Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Bernard Ferguson) and Mere Berryman (Mount Maunganui Intermediate). The Framework Team worked with teachers in sixteen schools and was supported by an Advisory Group.

2&&&For a full account of the study, see Ngā Kete Kōrero Framework Team (1995; 1996a; 1996b).

MERE BERRYMAN runs Specialist Education Services at Poutama Pounamu Education, Research and Development Centre, Tauranga. She has experience in teaching and special education and more recently in research.

Email: berrymanm@SES.org.nz

CATH RAU, of Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust, is a former Kura Kaupapa Māori teacher who now works on initiatives to support literacy programmes in Māori medium settings. This includes resource and assessment development, research, and the delivery of professional development.

TED GLYNN holds the foundation chair in Teacher Education at the University of Waikato. He has a wide background in applied behaviour analysis, special education, and bicultural and bilingual education.