The Niue literacy experiment

In the mid-1970s a major change was introduced in the teaching of English as a second language at the primary level on Niue Island in the South Pacific. At that time the governmentʹs education system consisted of seven primary schools and one high school administered by a small Education Department. Prior to the change, English had been taught through a structural linguistic approach, which was almost universal in the South Pacific. Central to the change was the Shared Book Experience, a teaching method widely used in New Zealand schools. Used in conjunction with a large supply of suitable storybooks, it was seen as a promising vehicle for instruction to improve the ESL learning outcomes for Year 3 pupils. This chapter sets out a justification for using the Shared Book procedures, the strategies that were implemented, and the evaluation procedures used to test the effectiveness of the change. Results showed that Year 3 pupils taught by the new method made significant gains in reading comprehension, word recognition and oral English, when compared with similar children taught with the structural approach.