Instructional Series
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Welcome to the English medium literacy instructional series teaching and learning resources for years 1 to 8.

- Gold
- Purple
- Blue
- Red
- Green
- Yellow
- Orange
- Turquoise
- Magenta
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 1
- 4
- 6
- 5
- 3
- 8
- 7
- 2
- 1
- English
- Social Sciences
- Science
- Health and Physical Education
- Technology
- The Arts
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Learning Languages
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- None
- Nature of science
- Living world
- Nature of technology
- Statistics
- Geometry and Measurement
- Planet Earth and beyond
- Technological knowledge
- Physical world
- Material world
- Number and Algebra
- Technological practice
- Gather and interpret data
- Use evidence
- Critique evidence
- Engage with science
- Interpret representations
- Articles
- Stories
- Poems
- Plays
- Activity
- Comic
- Kākano | Seed
- Tupu | Seedling
- Māhuri | Sapling
- Rākau | Tree
- Consonant digraphs
- Consonant patterns
- Initial and final blends
- Long vowels
- Short vowels
- Single consonants
- Complex morphemes
- Tense
- Vowel digraphs
- Contractions
- Syllable types
Search results
1187 items - Showing 1051 - 1060
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Guide Dogs
by Sue Walker
This report describes how guide dogs are trained and how they help blind and visually impaired people.
It provides opportunities for students to identify and summarise main points and to use the information to explain why guide dogs are special.Purple 1
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That’s the Way
by Lino Nelisi
illustrated by Elspeth Alix Batt
This dramatic narrative describes Animoe’s exciting experience of achieving her goal of playing in her mother’s kirikiti team. The text draws out the friendly, lively nature of island cricket and of Animoe’s parents’ pride in her performance. It’s available in five Pacific languages in the Tupu series, and audio versions in both English and Niuean are on Tupu CD Two, item 10625.
Purple 1
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The Queen of Spain
by Alan Bagnall
illustrated by Freya Blackwood
This recount of an imaginary trip on Grandpa’s boat The Queen of Spain mixes fantasy and reality. It links well with Dragon (Orange), also by Alan Bagnall.
Purple 1
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Tom’s Tryathlon
by Kristine Hornblow
photographs by Peter Crawford
In this recount, Tom talks about his first experience of participating in the Weet-Bix™ Kiwi Kids Tryathlon.
Purple 1
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Two Tiger Tales
retold by Barbara Beveridge
illustrated by Caroline Campbell and Ali Teo
This book contains two folk tales in which tigers are outwitted by smaller animals. In “The Clumsy Tiger”, a tiger asks a cat to teach him to become quick and clever. The tiger learns fast, but there is one thing the clever cat realises he shouldn’t teach him! “The Competition” describes how a small but clever frog is able to scare away a tiger.
The two stories are available as individual audio files for download:
Purple 1
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A Quilt for Kiri
by Don Long
pictures by Judith Kunzlé
This sensitive narrative tells of the death of Kiri’s grandmother far away in the Cook Islands. Grandma’s gift of a quilt to Kiri sparks special memories for Kiri and her dad. A Gift for Aunty Ngā (Gold) is a sequel to this book.
Purple 2
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Scarecrows from Space
by Philippa Werry
photographs by Mark Coote
The students at Gladstone School are making scarecrows for the Gladstone Scarecrow Festival.
It’s their favourite time of year! This year, the theme is “space”. This report describes how some of the scarecrows were made, including some challenges the students needed to think about and overcome.Purple 2
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Whitebait Season
by Tracey Cormack
illustrated by Elspeth Alix Batt
In this realistic narrative, Nathan goes whitebaiting with his dad in the hope their catch will be a lot better than in the past.
Purple 2
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A Gift for Aunty Ngā
by Don Long
illustrated by Judith Kunzlé
In this sequel to A Quilt for Kiri (Purple), Kiri visits Rarotonga with her parents to meet Aunty Ngā and gives her a tīvaevae that she and her mother have made. This is a rich personal-experience narrative with many layers of meaning, which lends itself to expressive reading and can be returned to many times. These notes include background information about tīvaevae and some aspects of Cook Islands culture.
Gold 1
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Blue Eggs
by John Dekker
This report describes the life cycle of a song thrush, how the song thrush came to New Zealand, and why some people consider this bird to be a problem.
This text provides opportunities for students to find and summarise information and to consider different points of view.Gold 1