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
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- 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 961 - 970
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Getting the Message Across
by Iona McNaughton
In this interview, Iona McNaughton talks to Alan Wendt, a New Zealand Sign Language interpreter. Alan explains why he chose to become an interpreter and describes what his job involves. “Getting the Message Across” is one of several pieces in this journal on the theme of communication.
Gold 1
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A School Comes Home
by Renata Hopkins
This recount describes a campaign by Redcliffs School and its local community to save their school after it was closed because of damage from the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. “A School Comes Home” includes comments from past and present students and a timeline of events.
Gold 2
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Top Bear
by Bill Nagelkerke
This lighthearted, humorous story is set during the time of the March–April 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. It describes the antics of two bears who appear to be competing to become the most popular bear in Lockdown Street. The story is told in the form of a television news report and includes social media posts and many entertaining word plays. It ends with a series of questions that invite readers to speculate about what might be behind the bears’ antics.
Gold 1
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Now We’re Talking
by Simon Cooke
In this humorous science-fiction play, a computer virus causes problems at an interplanetary planning meeting for the Space Games. Students will enjoy the misunderstandings between the characters as they attempt to make sense of the nonsense created by a faulty language translation program.
Purple 2
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Hinepūkohurangi me Te Maunga
This comic by Ngāi Tūhoe writer Maraea Rakuraku explores the pūrākau of Hinepūkohurangi and Te Maunga from a contemporary perspective. Pōtiki is travelling home with his dad, fresh from reciting his pepeha at school. As he reads a comic retelling the pūrākau of how Hinepūkohurangi fell in love with Te Maunga, he comes to see his surroundings and his pepeha in a new light. The comic shifts between the two narratives – the car ride and the pūrākau comic – creating a layered, meditative story that touches on place, belonging, whakapapa, and the power of storytelling.
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Kura Huna: The Art of Reweti Arapere
by Stephanie Tibble
Reweti Arapere learnt that the art he wanted to make was the art that emerged when he looked at the world through his Māori eyes. His giant cardboard and felt-pen figures help him to tell the stories of his whakapapa and of Aotearoa.
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Mauri Mahi, Mauri Ora
by Kate Paris; illustrations by Paul Beavis
A humorous play with an intriguing setting and multiple features that allow students interested in drama to hone their performances.
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Grumpy Hungry
by Joanna Cho; illustrations by Lisa Baudry
This narrative poem, told in the first person, chronicles being hungry, an experience that intensifies as time passes and which is matched by figurative language that does the same. A good model for student writing.
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The Story of the Ventnor
by Kirsten Wong
In 1902, thirteen lives were lost when the SS Ventnor sank off the Hokianga coast in Northland. The ship was carrying the carefully packaged bones of almost five hundred Chinese goldminers on their way home for burial. Despite immediate efforts to retrieve the bones, the ship and its precious cargo were lost. Over the following months, some of the bones washed up on Hokianga beaches. Most of these bones were collected and cared for by local iwi, with the stories of the shipwreck and the Chinese kōiwi passed down across generations of Māori. Over one hundred years later, some of the decendants of the goldminers discovered the fate of the bones and the kindness that iwi had shown and travelled north to learn more. A shared respect for the ancestors has since drawn together Chinese New Zealand communities and the iwi who are now kaitiaki of the goldminers’ remains.
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Happy Birthday
by James Brown; illustrations by Josh Morgan
The nameless narrator and his friend Jeet, as featured in “The Polterheist”, reappear for another round of humorous high-jinks, this time involving an awkward birthday and a backyard tunnel.