2016 regional benchmark for literacy
These benchmarks are not curriculum in itself but contains indicators in areas of language and mathematics curriculum which are necessary in understanding other aspects of
learning in order to effectively participate in society.
PACIFIC DEFINITION OF LITERACY:
Knowledge and skills necessary to empower a person to communicate through any form of language of their society and the wider world, with respect to all aspects of everyday life.
A person is considered to be functionally literate if she/he has the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to:
- effectively communicate in various forms for a variety of
purposes, - use critical and creative thinking strategies when engaging in a range of contexts,
- gain meaning from a range of oral, written and visual texts, and
- become an active lifelong learner to contribute and participate in and beyond her/his society.
A literacy status of a person between the ages of 6 to 14 years will be determined nationally and regionally (if required) by referencing his/her literacy skills to the benchmark indicators outlined below.
However, a person is considered to be functionally literate if he/she has completed four years of formal education and has met the literacy benchmark outlined for Year 4.
Reading strand benchmarks
| Year 2 | Understand and respond to texts with simple content and a highly predictable structure. |
| Year 4 | Understand and engage with a variety of texts with some complexity of ideas and a less predictable structure. |
| Year 6 | Use comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate a variety of texts of increasing complexity in content and structure. |
| Year 8 | Use higher order thinking skills to respond critically to a variety of texts that have subtle and/or unfamiliar content, and complex language structures and textual features. |
Writing strand benchmarks
| Year 2 | Illustrate and write ideas using basic writing conventions. |
| Year 4 | Present ideas and information using mostly simple sentences and paragraphs to create a range of texts. |
| Year 6 | Use a variety of writing conventions to present ideas and information on a wide range of topics and text types. |
| Year 8 | Use more complex language structures to present ideas and information about a wide range of topics/eperiences for different purposes. |
Listening strand benchmarks
| Year 2 | Use listening strategies to understand and respond to aural/spoken texts of limited complexity. |
| Year 4 | Use listening strategies to understand and respond to aural/spoken texts of some complexity from a variety of settings, experiences and learning contexts. |
| Year 6 | Use listening strategies to understand, evaluate and respond to a wide variety of aural/spoken texts of increasing complexity in content and structure. |
| Year 8 | Use listening strategies to understand and engage critically with a wide variety of aural/spoken texts with subtle and/or unfamiliar content and a complex structure. |
Speaking strand benchmarks
| Year 2 | Use basic language structures to express ideas and personal experiences. |
| Year 4 | Use langauage structures of some complexity to convey ideas and experiences in a variety of contexts. |
| Year 6 | Use more complex language structures to effectively communicate ideas and experiences in a variety of contexts. |
| Year 8 | Use increasingly more complex language structures to effectively communicate ideas and experiences in a wide variety of contexts. |
