As with Numeracy, the national standards set out the expectations for reading and writing at each Year level.  Note that the standard is deemed achievable by the end of the given Year level.   The standards come across as a bit more vague than the Numeracy ones as it is more difficult to define the skills of each stage.  These literacy learning progressions (* are being updated at the moment, with a promise to be available online in June sometime) spell things out in a bit more detail.  In terms of working with your child at home, I would suggest for Years 1 & 2 spending most time on learning to read - usually schools will send home a reading book of the appropriate level.   The key is to do small amounts often - make reading a book together part of your daily routine.  Do your best to be patient and encouraging - it will happen!  In Years 3 & 4, make an effort to quiz your child more thoroughly on their understanding of what they are reading and introduce spelling lists.  My children enjoy taking turns with me at being the reader and the listener.  From Years 5 onwards, add some grammar work.  Get them to do some writing for you and then to read it back and edit it.  This can be made more fun by having an ongoing action story that you each take turns at writing a paragraph of.  

You can use the Essential Spelling Lists below to get you started.  A rough guide to follow is that by the end of Y2 children should be expected to know all the words in List 1-2 , the end of Y4 - Lists 1-4, the end of Y6 - Lists 1-6, the end of Y8 Lists 1-7. In many cases children will have mastered all these words at an earlier stage. Obviously there are all sorts of other words you could teach your children to spell (there are some free lists here if you scroll through the downloads).  It's often a good idea to look at their own writing for errors as these words will tend to be ones they will use again.  If you teach your children to spell words that they don't use they will often promptly forget them again. 

Most primary schools use the Ready to Read series.  These are colour coded to show the reading level - starting at Magenta for emerging readers.  Early readers then progress through red, yellow, blue and green until they are fluent readers when they move through orange, turquoise, purple and gold.  The National Standards state that after a year in school students should be up to Green level, after two years up to Turquoise and at Gold level by the end of Year 3.  From Years 4 onward a greater variety of texts are used and School Journals are ideal.  Your local library will often be able to advise you on some good texts for your child's Year level.


During the early years of primary school, most New Zealand schools use running records to help determine a child's reading level.  Check out the tests page for some more detail about these.