Publisher Launches Phonics Scheme To Support Teachers In New Zealand

A brand-new phonics scheme has been launched by Twinkl to help teachers, parents and carers across the country develop children’s reading and spelling skills.

Twinkl Phonics New Zealand has been designed specifically to suit early literacy learning in New Zealand classrooms, with all materials written by experienced Kiwi teachers. The scheme is written in New Zealand English and features the Kiwi accent.

The comprehensive scheme guides children from New Entrants to Year 2 through six levels of dynamic and engaging phonics materials, including daily planning, teaching powerpoints, games and spelling bookmarks.

Phonics is a method of teaching the reading and spelling of language and involves teaching the relationship between speech sounds and the spelling patterns that represent them.

Children learn to recognise the sounds that each letter or group of letters makes, how to put them together to read words, and how to break them apart to spell words.

New Zealand has traditionally used a whole language approach to literacy teaching, but numerous studies have linked increases in reading attainment to phonological knowledge, according to the Massey University Early Literacy Research Project.

Research highlights that following a sequential phonics framework enables children to build their knowledge at their own pace and allows teachers to focus on any areas learners are struggling with to further reinforce key skills.

Twinkl Phonics New Zealand is a highly engaging and multisensory scheme that supports teachers to develop their pupils’ literacy skills. This includes letter formation, decoding, auditory awareness and discrimination skills, and the segmenting and manipulation of phonemes.

Teachers and schools can download Twinkl’s free phonics user guide and phonics taster packs for more information about the scheme, which was built on the success of Twinkl’s British equivalent.

The scheme is available with a Twinkl Ultimate membership. Twinkl Ultimate provides educators with access to everything Twinkl has to offer, including over 691,000 educational resources.

Founded in 2010, Twinkl provides high-quality teaching and learning materials to educators and parents around the world.

The materials available on the Twinkl New Zealand website range from worksheets, information packs and interactive presentations to online educational games and videos, with a wide range based on the New Zealand Curriculum.

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