Te Aro School teacher Serah Mehrtens reads 'At the Marae' to her class. She says her pupils have not struggled with Māori words in the book. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Primary principals say debate over a book for junior readers has come at a time when teachers are on high alert over threats to te reo Māori in schools.
Some reacted angrily when the Education Ministry announced one of 75 books in a series for learner readers had been reprinted as a big book, but not as a small book because its higher number of Māori words presented challenges for those learning to decode words.
Te Akatea, the Māori principals' association, last week said the decision was racist, an accusation the ministry strongly refuted, pointing out that other books in the series had Māori words and insisting that the decision was based purely on educational reasons.
Principals' Federation president Leanne Otene told RNZ educators were worried about any threats to the use of te reo in schools because the government had sidelined Māori names for government agencies.
"It's not just one book, it's part of a concerning pattern of removing te reo Māori from government services across the board," she said.
"When a government department stops using Māori names and phrases it sends a signal about what they value and our children are growing up watching their government treat te reo Māori as less important. What lesson does that send about their identity as New Zealanders... This feels like we are deliberately going backwards."
Otene said all schools taught children Māori words and they should not be considered "foreign".
"These are English words in New Zealand. When your child watches the All Blacks do the haka, they're not watching a foreign language. They're watching New Zealand culture, they're listening to New Zealand words. This won't confuse our struggling readers it's more concerning when a child can say a word but can't read it. These kids already know these words we're just helping them connect what they know to what they read," she said.
"All New Zealand children benefit from understanding their country's culture. When we teach kids about Anzac Day we don't ask if they were personally connected to Gallipoli, we teach it because it's part of being a New Zealander."
Rae Si'ilata advised schools on bilingual education.
She said the structured literacy approach that all schools must now use to teach reading focused on teaching phonemes or sounds that occurred in the English language but it was important that children also learned Māori words and words from Pacific languages.
"For Māori and Pacific children, reading meaningful text is fundamental to learning how to read at school. I see that with my own mokopuna, they are interested in reading text that is meaningful to them and that is connected to their own lives and experiences," she said.
Si'ilata said an assumption that children would struggle with the "cognitive load" of another language was nonsense.
"We are all on that bilingual continuum. We can easily cope with the idea that English and te reo Maori have different phonemes. They have a number of similar phonemes, but they also have a number of different phonemes or sounds," she said.
Porirua principal Michelle Thwaites said her school used structured literacy along with the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme to teach children to read.
"Learning to read for our tamariki is a mixture of languages, they come in with a mixture of languages so it's very normal for them," she said.
Thwaites said schools needed more funding to help their teachers improve their command of Māori.
