Our Service

Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTLit) are one of a number of supplementary support interventions in place in the schooling sector.  RTLit contribute to the Ministry of Education's vision of "A world-leading education system that equips all New Zealanders with the knowledge, skills and values to be successful citizens in the 21st century". The service is designed to provide specialised and targeted support for students in years 0-8; and to supplement effective classroom teaching for those students who have literacy learning difficulties which mean they are not on track to reach their potential. 

The North Shore Literacy Centre is located at Takapuna Primary School. Four RTLit are based here, with two of us working fulltime and the other two job sharing.  We each work across multiple schools, as there are 59 schools within the North Shore cluster that can refer to us. Once a referral has met our criteria we will consult with school staff about the needs of the student, conduct our own assessment of where that child is at in terms of their literacy learning and communicate with the child's family. The type of  support we provide can vary. We may offer one-to-one or small group specialist literacy teaching directly to the student/s concerned or indirectly support the student by providing other guidance, modelling and resources to school staff and families.

Each resource teacher draws on their previous teaching experience, current research, a range of approaches and a variety of different resources, depending on what they determine to be the most beneficial, in raising the literacy achievement of the particular learner they are working with. Our student roll is diverse and we aim to do our best to individualise each intervention.

We adhere to the guiding principles outlined in the Resource Teachers Literacy Professional Practice Manual. This is intended to provide schools, management committees, host principals and RTLit with clear guidelines of effective practice and to ensure common understandings of key terms. It describes the parameters for our specialist teaching role as we make professional and deliberate decisions about how to best cater to the diverse literacy needs of those referred to the RTLit service.