Teachers’ selection of texts for Pasifika students in New Zealand primary schools

Abstract

In this article we explore teachers’ beliefs regarding effective text for Pasifika students, a group at risk of underachieving nationally. We report the features of texts that teachers consider important when selecting texts for their Pasifika students. Primary school teachers (N=11) were purposively selected for their demonstrated effectiveness in supporting Pasifika students’ achievement in literacy. Teacher nominations and explanations of effective and less effective texts for Pasifika students were presented at small focus group discussions, and led to conversations about how teachers used those texts. Subsequently, a sample of text nominations was independently analysed and the results considered alongside reported beliefs. Findings suggest teachers draw on interactions between their knowledge of texts, their knowledge of students and curricular goals. Teachers’ selections were largely instructional readers, most often narrative in structure. Teachers reported constraining the challenges of text for Pasifika students, to create controlled conditions for a focus on the learning of target skills. We explore the implications of teachers’ choices of texts for literacy development, including the unintended risks of those instructional choices. The possibilities for learning and the constraints created through the selection of text for immediate short term goals are considered in terms of students’ textual diet and their literacy development over time.