Parents have been urged to buy books for their children this Christmas to help address failing literacy rates.

Author Wendy Milton said a great way to help children improve their literacy and enjoy a great gift of adventure at the same time was to get them a book.

“In today’s instant gratification culture, children have everything they want and the magic of Christmas isn’t quite as magical as it used to be,” she said.

“Books are the perfect gift for Christmas.”

A report by Dr Nina Hood of Education Hub last year found that 35% of students in year 8 were achieving at or above the curriculum level for writing.

She said the reading ability in New Zealand at both primary and secondary school levels was steadily declining.

“Only 60% of 15-year-olds in New Zealand are achieving above the most basic level of reading, meaning a staggering 40% are struggling to read and write,” Hood wrote.

“The decline in writing ability appears to be of particular concern.

“When it comes to literacy, nearly everyone agrees there’s an urgent need for improvement.”

Nearly half the teenagers who sat the first run of new NCEA maths and writing tests earlier this year failed, the Ministry of Education said.

It said 41,000 secondary school students attempted some or all of the assessments in June with pass rates of 56.3 in writing, 55.9% in numeracy, and 64.4% in reading.

The students’ schools opted into the tests, which will become mandatory for NCEA next year.

“The writing result was a marked improvement on trials held last year and in 2021 where pass rates ranged from 34 to 46%,” the ministry said.

In its NCEA Level 1 literacy and numeracy standards, only one in three students passed the writing component, while about two-thirds passed reading and numeracy tests.

“Even more concerning, just 2% of students in decile 1 schools passed the writing assessment, compared with 62% in decile 10 schools,” it said.

Milton said that with homes already filled with gadgets, games, and iPads, parents were finding it more and more difficult each year to buy presents for their children or their friends’ kids.

“Everybody already seems to have everything.”

Milton has penned 13 books, 12 of them for children in the 8 to 12-year-old bracket, including her popular five-volume children’s series, Zach’s Story, which is available online from Amazon, Dymocks and Angu, and Robertson.

“Let’s all get behind our writers this Christmas and buy a book or two for kids,” she said.

“Their summer holidays are starting and parents will be lamenting about how hard it is to get their kids off iPads during the summer holidays.

“Books are a fantastic way of doing this as well as bringing the family together. You can share the reading and incorporate the book into family conversations. Books not only bring joy into our lives but create opportunities to share our lives.”

In September, the National Party vowed to “shake up” how children were taught to read and write in Aotearoa.

Part of this education overhaul, it said, included a pledge that required the teaching of “structured literacy” in all year 0-6 classrooms.

National also promised to introduce structured literacy as part of teacher training and ongoing professional development, but “research to support the teachers would be key”.

Both Massey University and the University of Canterbury have research projects focused on understanding and improving New Zealand’s literacy education.

“Connecting research to educational practice is notoriously difficult to achieve, but it is vital for ensuring classroom approaches are based on evidence,” Hood said.

“Research can provide the evidence of what works, which is vital in determining which literacy practices are successful, for whom, and how to implement them.”