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Teachers who read for pleasure can enable their students to become readers as they consciously and unconsciously model the knowledge, practices, values, beliefs, and language (that is, the discourses) associated with being a reader. Such teachers are in the unique position of being able to talk with students about what they are currently reading, why they like it--or do not, what is puzzling them, and why. Such conversations open the space for students to do the same in relation to stories shared in class and stories they choose to read in their own time. In other words, teachers who are readers can engage with their students as fellow readers, not just as teachers of reading. In doing so, these teachers can teach their students not just how to read, but how to be a reader.

In this article, I describe the challenges students faced in interpreting literary--or fictional--texts in the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement in the English learning area. I explain why it is important for students to learn how to interpret literary texts at school and consider why they might struggle with this important skill. I then describe how teachers might help students to build their interpretive capabilities.

In this article I explore a challenge identified by teachers involved in a recent research project on curriculum integration. Teachers described this challenge as how to balance the need to "cover" "The New Zealand Curriculum" with the need to support student agency. I describe how teachers saw this challenge, and the different ways they responded to it. I end by considering how our conceptions of knowledge might contribute to the ways in which we might think about and address this challenge.

This study describes trajectories of early literacy skill development of 99 children (n = 55 boys) in their first year of primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed twice weekly for 8 weeks on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2011) First Sound Fluency (FSF) and AIMSweb Letter Sound Fluency (LSF; Shinn & Shinn, 2002), with other early literacy and beginning reading skills assessed before and after progress monitoring. FSF and LSF growth trajectories were modeled separately. Multilevel modeling indicated improved performance; however, growth mixture modeling indicated 3 growth trajectories (i.e., latent classes; FSF and LSF, respectively): typical (77.6% of children, 65.7%), developing (10.8%, 14.6%), and limited progress (11.6%, 19.7%). Beginning of year screening was sometimes associated with latent class membership, whereas latent class membership differentiated mid- and year-end literacy skills. Results support progress monitoring of early literacy skills within the NZ context to aid earlier identification of children at-risk for difficulties with reading acquisition.

The key competencies are a potentially transformative feature of the New Zealand Curriculum. However, the way in which they have been understood and implemented in schools points to tensions and challenges that may prevent them from acting as agents of curriculum change. One recent researcher/practitioner partnership developed materials that show how a close interweaving of key competencies and traditional subject learning might transform the taught curriculum. Analysis of the practice of the teachers who contributed to this project suggests that refocusing teacher thinking about purposes for learning is likely to be a critical change lever. A clear focus on students' present and future needs must be part of any re-imagining of purposes for teaching and learning, and hence of the taught curriculum.

School efforts to engage parents are posited to influence whether and how they are involved in their children's schooling. The authors examined educators' engagement efforts in beginning reading, their subjective evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about parent involvement, in two stratified samples of New Zealand elementary school educators. They explored whether educators' ratings supported multidimensional and multitiered theoretical models of engagement. The authors invited responses from elementary principals and teachers, given their different roles in the nested ecology of schools and relationships with parents, and examined associations between pairs of principals and teachers working in the same school. Finally, the authors examined relations among educators' engagement efforts, evaluations of engagement practices, and beliefs about involvement, and school characteristics including community socioeconomic status, size of school population, ethnic composition of school population, community size, and geographic region.

The purpose of this study was to clarify equivocal findings in the parent-involvement literature and examine novel interactions in a New Zealand context. Specifically, this study tested direct effects of school year, parent education, family structure, and child gender on parent involvement in elementary school. In addition, interactions between parent, family, and child characteristics were explored as moderators on the relation of school year and parent involvement. Participants were 421 primary caregivers of children attending their first through final years of elementary school on New Zealand's South Island. Structural equation models were used to detect direct and interaction effects. Findings revealed statistically significant direct effects for several parent, family, and child characteristics examined. No interaction effects were found. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

A New Zealand (NZ) version of Word Identification Fluency (NZWIF) was administered to 120 children in their second school year at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, along with a curriculum-based measure of oral passage reading fluency at mid- and end-year. Outcome measures included standardized and high-stakes school-used indicators of literacy achievement. NZWIF generally correlated robustly, concurrently and predictively with criterion measures. Overall, NZWIF performance improved across the year. Performance, and change in performance, varied for students who were and were not judged to be making adequate reading progress. Although at-risk readers performed more poorly at each time point, predictive relations of earlier NZWIF performance, subsequent NZWIF growth, and the interaction of earlier performance and growth to later outcomes varied as a function of proficiency and time of year. Findings extend the evidence-base for curriculum-based word reading measures in beginning reading, and reinforce the need for a developmental approach to assessment research and practice.

This study described the relations of parents' and teachers' beliefs and attitudes to forms of parents' involvement in children's first two years of primary school. Parents of children in their first year of primary school (age 5) were recruited from 12 classrooms within four schools in New Zealand; 196 families participated in their child's first year, and 124 families continued to participate in their child's second school year. Parents completed the Family-Involvement Questionnaire, New Zealand, and we archivally collected parent-documented children's oral reading homework. Teachers' rated helpfulness of parents' involvement at school (level 2) and parents' rated teacher invitations to be involved and their perceived time and energy (level 1) contributed to school-based involvement in Year 1 in multilevel models, with parents' rated teacher invitations for involvement also found to predict Year 1 home-school communication in regression analyses. Contributors to Year 1 child-parent reading in multilevel models included level 1 predictors of two or more adults in the home and parents' perceived time and energy. Longitudinal analyses suggested both consistency and change in each form of involvement from Year 1 to Year 2, with increases in each form of involvement found to be associated with increases in parents' and/or teachers' views about involvement in Year 2 in cross-sectional time-series analyses. Implications for schools wanting to engage families are that parents' involvement in children's schooling may be influenced by parents' perceptions of their capacity, teachers' engagement efforts, and the school's climate for involvement. This is a special issue paper “Family Engagement in Education and Intervention”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary objective: To determine how visible markers of brain injury interact with people's knowledge about brain injury to influence people's attributions for undesirable behaviours of a person with brain injury. Research design, method and procedures: Scenarios in Experiment 1 ( n = 98) and Experiment 2 ( n = 148) described an adolescent pictured with or without a head scar, who showed four behavioural changes. Participants rated two causal attributions for each behaviour: brain injury and adolescence. Experiment 1 varied information that the adolescent had a brain injury and Experiment 2 assessed participants' familiarity with brain injury. Main outcomes and results: The presence of a head scar increased attributions to brain injury. In Experiment 1, participants not informed about the brain injury attributed the behaviours more to adolescence than to brain injury than informed participants. In Experiment 2, in the 'no scar' condition participants familiar with brain injury attributed the behaviours more to brain injury than those who were not. Conclusion: Markers of brain injury interact with people's knowledge about brain injury in shaping people's attributions for the behaviour of persons with brain injury. When people attribute sequelae of the brain injury to other causes, this may hinder appropriate treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to determine the clinical effects of party pills containing benzylpiperazine (BZP) and trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine (TFMPP) when taken alone and in combination with alcohol. The study was a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted in a hospital-based clinic in Wellington, New Zealand. Thirty-five volunteers who had previously used party pills containing BZP were included in this trial. Participants received one of the following four treatments: 300 mg/74 mg BZP/TFMPP and placebo, 300 mg/74 mg BZP/TFMPP and 57.6 g (6 units) alcohol, placebo and 57.6 g (6 units) alcohol and double placebo. The primary outcome variable was a measure of driving performance, the standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP) measured at 6.5 h. Secondary measures included adverse events, cardiovascular effects, psychological function and delayed effects on sleep. The study was stopped early, after 35 of the planned 64 subjects had undertaken testing, because of severe adverse events that occurred in four of 10 BZP/TFMPP-only subjects, three of seven combined BZP/TFMPP and alcohol subjects, none of the 6 placebo subjects, and none of the 12 alcohol-only subjects. The overall rate of severe adverse events (defined as causing considerable interference with usual activity and/or rated by subject as severe) in those receiving BZP/TFMPP was seven of 17 (41.2%, 95% CI 18.4-67.1). The severe events included agitation, anxiety, hallucinations, vomiting, insomnia and migraine. BZP/TFMPP significantly improved the driving performance, decreasing SDLP at -4.2 cm (95% CI -6.8 to -1.6, P = 0.002). The effect of alcohol was to increase SDLP: 2.3 cm (95% CI -0.3 to 4.9, P = 0.08). BZP/TFMPP also resulted in increased heart rate and blood pressure and in difficulty in getting to sleep. BZP/TFMPP alone or with alcohol carries a significant risk of severe adverse events when taken in similar doses to those recommended by manufacturers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To describe New Zealand’s historical terrestrial biogeography and place this history in a wider Southern Hemisphere context. Location New Zealand. Methods The analysis is based primarily on literature on the distributions and relationships of New Zealand’s terrestrial flora and fauna. Results New Zealand is shown to have a biota that has broad relationships, primarily around the cool Southern Hemisphere, as well as with New Caledonia to the north. There are hints of ancient Gondwanan taxa, although the long-argued predominance of taxa derived by vicariant processes, driven by plate tectonics and the fragmentation of Gondwana, is no longer accepted as a principal explanation of the biota’s origins and relationships. Main conclusions Most of the terrestrial New Zealand flora and fauna has clearly arrived in New Zealand much more recently than the postulated separation of New Zealand from Gondwana, dated at c. 80 Ma. There is a view that New Zealand may have disappeared completely beneath the sea in the early Cenozoic, and acceptance of this would mean derivation of the entire biota by transoceanic dispersal. However, there are elements in the biota that seem to have broad distributions that date back to Gondwanan times, and also some that are thought unlikely to have been able to disperse to New Zealand across ocean gaps, especially freshwater organisms. Very strong connections to the biota of Australia, rather than to South America, are inconsistent with the timing of New Zealand’s ancient and early separation from Gondwana and seem likely to have resulted from dispersal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galaxiid fishes are commonly assumed to exhibit a Gondwanan distribution, but little fossil evidence has been available to support or refute this assumption until now. Here we report on three species of fossil Galaxias, represented by exquisitely preserved, almost entire skeletons, together with jaw and skull fragments, from several Miocene lacustrine deposits in Otago, South Island, New Zealand. These are the only certain Galaxias fossils, and provide unequivocal evidence that the genus was abundant, and taxonomically and ecologically diverse in the New Zealand region before 23 million years ago. One new species, Galaxias effusus, from an Early Miocene diatomite deposit near Middlemarch is described on the basis of low vertebral count, short caudal peduncle, expansive dorsal, caudal and anal fins, rounded to truncate caudal fin, with 15 principal caudal fin rays. The intact skeletons of G. effusus confirm that they inhabited a deep, stratified maar lake with cool, anoxic bottom water. The maar lake was completely landlocked, from sedimentological evidence, and this species must have been nonmigratory. Disarticulated fish jaws and skull fragments from Early Miocene mudstones near Bannockburn are likely to be from a second large species of Galaxias on the basis of dentary, premaxilla and parasphenoid size and morphology. These disarticulated fish remains from a regionally extensive inland lake system indicate decomposition and/or predation in shallow nearshore environments, but we have no evidence yet of migratory behaviour. New specimens of G. kaikorai Whitley from Late Miocene diatomite deposits near Dunedin confirm its morphological similarity to the living G. brevipinnis. The occurrence and diversity of galaxiids in lakes of early and Late Miocene age in southern New Zealand can be explained by either oceanic dispersal across the Southern Hemisphere at any time during the Cenozoic, relict Gondwanan distributions or, most likely, an ancient Gondwanan origin overprinted by Cenozoic dispersal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The taxonomic status of Gobiomorphus alpinus Stokell (1962) has recently been questioned. It is a localised endemic in the Tarndale lakes, submontane tarns at c. 1050 m elevation in inland Marlborough, South Island. Suggestions that this species is an ecophenotype of the widespread, amphidromous G. cotidianus McDowall, 1975 are refuted, and we discuss evidence that basing this conclusion on limited molecular data is of dubious worth. More broad-based molecular comparisons, re-examination of meristic and morphometric data, and comparisons of data on the Tarndale bully populations with specimens of G. cotidianus from another high elevation tam, affirm the taxonomic distinctness of G. alpinus. In the absence of appropriate high resolution molecular data (e.g., quantitative trait loci, AFLPs, etc), we conclude that the Tarndale populations warrant taxonomic recognition, and a level of conservation consistent with their range-restricted endemism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origin, ecology, and status of New Zealand's freshwater fisheries resources are reviewed. Rivers are the main freshwater features in these Pacific temperate-zone islands. Geological events, the islands' remoteness, and the recent nature of human colonization (first Maori and then European) have shaped the freshwater ichthyofauna. Diadromy is a dominant ecological feature for many indigenous species. Many species have also been introduced to create fisheries. Traditional Maori fisheries are focussed on indigenous eels and whitebait while recreational fisheries target introduced salmonids. Management of New Zealand freshwater fish is dispersed among several departments. New Zealand habitats are pristine by global standards due largely to the recent settlement of European colonists. Many rivers have been impounded for electricity generation; this constitutes the main environmental issue for freshwater fish. Intensification of agriculture also poses a growing eutrophication threat. The ecologies of indigenous species are becoming better known but much knowledge is anecdotal. Efforts to conserve indigenous freshwater species are increasing. Impoundment, irrigation, deforestation, and introduced salmonids, are the main threats to the native fauna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several diadromous New Zealand and Australian species of Galaxias are now known, or suspected, to deposit their eggs amongst riparian vegetation or substrates either supratidally in estuaries or in forested streams in locations that are only temporarily submerged by elevated water levels. The eggs develop in a humid atmosphere and hatch when the egg deposition sites are resubmerged; a significant role for agitation in stimulating hatching seeming likely. There are risks from the eggs becoming dehydrated, and also from a failure by water to resubmerge the eggs before they have exhausted their energy resources. Hatching is triggered by elevated flows, perhaps being an outcome of agitation of the eggs. Elevated flows may also increase the rate of downstream transport of the larvae, facilitating survival during dispersal to sea from spawning sites in streams that may be long distances inland. Hatching during flood events may favour survival of the larvae because turbid flows may provide ‘cover’ for the larvae as they emigrate to sea. Risks from egg predation by aquatic predators may be replaced by risks from terrestrial predators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fish fossils that appear to be of Gobiomorphus species are described from lake sediments from widely separated localities: near St Bathans, Central Otago, and the Ormond Valley of the Waipaoa River, inland from Gisborne. Dating of the sites suggests that the fishes from Central Otago are Early Miocene in age (c. 20-16 million years old), while those from Ormond Valley are of mid-Pleistocene age (c. 620 000 years). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports two fossil fishes, most probably of the genus Prototroctes, from a mid-Pleistocene lake deposit in north-eastern New Zealand. These are the first known fossils of this genus, which is found only in south-eastern Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the biogeographical setting of the Falkland Islands, in the context of the relationships of the islands’ biota to other sub-Antarctic/cold temperate lands.The analysis focuses primarily on the Falklands biota, and explores its relationships to those of Patagonian South America and South Africa, other southern lands and the islands of the sub-Antarctic Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.The study derives largely from literature sources on the biota and geological history of the Falkland Islands.The animals and plants known from the Falkland Islands exhibit strong affinities with those of Patagonian South America, and especially Tierra del Fuego; additional affinities are with various remote islands of the sub-Antarctic, as well as New Zealand and to a lesser extent Australia; often these are shared with Patagonia. While the biotic affinities might be interpreted, by some, as indicating a former Gondwanan/South American geological connection of the Falklands, geological evidence points to the Falklands formerly having a land connection to south-eastern South Africa. Only faint hints of a South African biotic connection remain. The historical biotic and geological connections of the Falklands thus conflict. Moreover, the Falklands biota is so strongly Patagonian that derivation of that biota is best seen as resulting from dispersal, much of it probably recent. This dispersal biota appears to have replaced, and perhaps displaced, the South African biota present on the islands as they detached from South Africa and drifted across the south Atlantic Ocean, as it opened up as South America and Africa drifted apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand has prolific, cool, clear fresh water of high quality, found in numerous medium to small rivers and streams and low elevation to high country lakes. These waterways carry a highly endemic fish fauna of low diversity (36 indigenous species, 21 exotic species). The indigenous fauna is dominated by Galaxiidae (20 species), whereas the most diverse exotic groups are Salmonidae and Cyprinidae (7 species of each). The steep topography of the country means that the rivers and streams tend to be swiftly flowing, with coarse gravel and cobble, substrates of hard rock, and a high proportion of the indigenous species live within these substrates. About half the indigenous species are diadromous, undertaking regular, seasonally-timed migrations to and from the sea. Fisheries based on the indigenous fauna include modest commercial anguillid eel and galaxiid whitebait fisheries, but probably the chief form of freshwater fisheries exploitation (in overall economic terms) is for New Zealand's world-renowned, recreational angling fisheries for salmonids. Research on the fauna is broadly spread across diverse fields, from studies of the place of freshwater fishes in the community ecology of river and stream biotas as a whole, to focussed studies on habitats of threatened species, design of fish passage facilities for migratory fishes, the effects of introduced exotic species on the indigenous fauna, the impacts of human stream perturbation on aquatic values including fish, and understanding the local ecology of species introduced to New Zealand from other lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cheimarrichthys fosteri is an endemic New Zealand freshwater fish that has its closest common ancestry with the blue cod, Parapercis colias, a species found in New Zealand coastal seas. Cheimarrichthys fosteri is amphidromous, and widely distributed around New Zealand. The fact that it has marine-living juvenile has a strong impact on the species' distribution. Upstream/inland penetration in river systems is substantial, and the torrentfish reaches 700 m elevation and 289 km upstream from the sea. High elevation is typically achieved only at relatively short distances inland, whereas long inland penetration is achieved typically only in low-gradient river systems. The torrentfish is a poor climber, and explicit barriers to upstream migration, such as natural falls and the construction of dams and weirs, limit inland penetration in many river systems. Sparse distribution in some areas, particularly in eastern New Zealand may be due in part to absence or sparseness of riverine gravels. Absence from other areas, such as around Cook and Foveaux straits, the Marlborough Sounds, Fiordland and Stewart and Chatham islands, may result from oceanographic conditions that do not favour return to rivers of the marine-living juveniles. Ecological and behavioural variables relating to the marine life intervals are the predominating factors influencing distribution, and historical biogeographical influences are of minor importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT / In general, diadromous (and particularly amphidromous and catadromous) freshwater fishes decline in frequency of occurrence, change age/size structure, and probably also decline in abundance with increasing elevation and distance upstream from the sea. In freshwater fish faunas with a high proportion of migratory species, as in New Zealand, these changes in occurrence and abundance result in a breakdown of the relationship between fish abundance and habitat quality, making application of the index of biotic integrity (IBI) as a measure of habitat quality problematical since the index depends on the relationship between population metrics and habitat quality. An alternative approach applicable to assessing temporal changes in habitat quality and that uses a large database on fish distributions, involves analysis of the distribution of species across their natural distributions. In this paper we generate curves of occurrence of species across ranges of altitude and distance inland and show, through comparisons of data subsets, that the curves are consistent estimators of species' occurrence and therefore useful as indicators of habitat quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the origins of New Zealand's chinook salmon species Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. Initial introductions; California salmon hatcheries as source of ova; Records of early 1900's importations; Returns from early 1900's releases.

1. Diadromy is a dominating behavioural characteristic of fish faunas in New Zealand rivers, with amphidromy and catadromy being the most common strategies. 2. Juvenile life stages of amphidromous and catadromous species migrate from the sea, through river systems, to find habitats for feeding, growth, maturation and reproduction. 3. Studies of fish distributions in rivers of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand show that, in most species, these migrations result in more or less continuous distributions from the lower reaches to the upstream limits of each species’ range. 4. Upstream penetration of rivers varies widely between species and this generates downstream–upstream trajectories of declining species richness. 5. Parallel trajectories of declining downstream–upstream abundance are likely in each species. 6. These patterns demonstrate the presence of downstream–upstream linkages in the community ecology of freshwater fishes in New Zealand rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on the Second International Conference on Sustainability Engineering and Science in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2007. They discuss the topics presented at the conference which focus on the importance of science and engineering to achieve sustainability. They emphasize the need for engineers and scientists to provide leadership in setting direction toward sustainability.