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
- Yellow
- Green
- Orange
- Turquoise
- Magenta
- 1
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- 3
- 4
- 4
- 3
- 6
- 5
- 1
- 2
- English
- Social Sciences
- Health and Physical Education
- Science
- The Arts
- Technology
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- None
- Stories
- Articles
- Poems
- Plays
- Comic
- Kākano | Seed
- Māhuri | Sapling
- Tupu | Seedling
- Complex morphemes
- Consonant digraphs
- Consonant patterns
- Initial and final blends
- Long vowels
- Short vowels
- Single consonants
- Tense
- Vowel digraphs
Search results
399 items - Showing 231 - 240
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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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Skate Champs
by Janice Marriott
photographs by Diana Dobson
This text recounts Luka’s experiences at the Skateboarding Championships and includes an interview. Luka also features in the Magenta-level book Off I Go! The sporting themes and specialised vocabulary link well with Tom’s Tryathlon (also at Purple).
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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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
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A Quiet Evening (from Night is a Blanket)
by Johnny Frisbie
illustrations by Judith Künzlé
This personal report describes a peaceful evening on a Pacific island beach. This story has been adapted (in consultation with the author) from a version that was published in the Tupu series in 1990.
Gold 1
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Red Rattlers
by Philippa Werry
This report describes the old Wellington cable cars and compares them with the current cable cars.
It includes an explanation, supported by photographs and diagrams, of the technology behind how the
old cable cars worked. The text concludes with an interview with a present-day cable car driver.Gold 2
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The Greatest Race on Earth
by Bronwen Wall
This report describes why the author considers the Tour de France to be “the greatest race on Earth”. Text boxes provide information about how the race was established. This text has strong connections to students’ experiences of, or knowledge about, sports and competition. It links particularly well to the Ready to Read text Tom’s Tryathlon (Purple).
Gold 2
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The Impossible Bridge
by Jane Buxton
photographs by Jamie Lean
This text describes a group of children’s attempts to build models of bridges. It incorporates a range of text forms: a recount written in diary form, “engineers’ reports”, and instructions. There is a Māori version, Te Piriti Mutunga Kore, in the Kawenga Kōrero series (item 22998).
Gold 2
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The White Tailed Spider
by Tina Johnson
photographs by Aaron Beck
This report both acknowledges that the white- tailed spider has a “bad name” and presents a different point of view. Although it has an informal conversational style, the report also includes some examples of the more formal language of report writing and of persuasive texts.
Gold 2
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