Teaching ākonga who need more: the case for specialised PLD in structured literacy approaches
By Kaye Brunton on July 17, 2025 in Local curriculum design
What effective PLD looks like for targeted and tailored structured literacy approaches teaching.
Some teaching roles are simply different.
Not just more demanding. Not just more technical. Different in what they require teachers to notice, plan, and do in the moment.
Supporting ākonga who require targeted or tailored instruction is not a variation on classroom teaching. It is a different kind of instructional work — adaptive, diagnostic, and driven by assessment.
If we expect teachers to do this work, the professional learning we offer must match the complexity of that work.
Why we designed Tāwhirihia
Tāwhirihia is our Ministry of Education approved PLD programme for teachers supporting ākonga through targeted (Te Kāhui) or tailored (Te Arotahi) instruction, aligned with Te Tūāpapa o He Pikorua. It strengthens teachers’ ability to apply structured literacy approaches responsively, grounded in diagnostic assessment and real classroom practice.
The course reflects the realities of school life and the science of learning. Teachers engage in PLD that is spaced over time. They have the opportunity to try new approaches in their own classrooms. They gather evidence and return to PLD with questions, insights, and data.
Tāwhirihia is not a five-day block course. It is a professional learning pathway that supports teachers to move from understanding, to implementation, to confident, adaptive practice.
What Tāwhirihia includes
We deliver Tāwhirihia across four terms. Tāwhirihia includes:
Five full-day workshops delivered over terms three and four
Online learning groups to revisit and consolidate knowledge
Targeted coaching and mentoring through terms one and two the following year
Each of the five workshops is designed to build practical capability:
Understanding structured literacy approaches and the Simple View of Reading
Using diagnostic assessment to identify gaps and inform teaching
Designing targeted or tailored interventions using explicit, responsive instruction
Leading change in practice through collaborative inquiry
Applying adaptive practice in complex teaching environments
Teachers also use our Niho Taniwha framework to surface their beliefs and assumptions that shape teaching decisions. Niho Taniwha supports teachers to analyse what’s influencing their practice and what might need to shift.
Tāwhirihia uses a gradual release of responsibility model. This design is deliberate. Why? Lasting change in teaching comes from applying knowledge in context, with time and support to reflect, adapt, and grow.
What it looks like in practice
Let us introduce you two fictional teacher we developed to help us stress-test every element of the programme. Meet Sarah and Moana.
Sarah is a classroom teacher in a small regional school. She is new to a literacy leadership role and responsible for tier 2 support. Sarah is supporting Thomas, a Year 1 learner receiving targeted support.
Moana is a SENCO in a large, diverse urban school. She is experienced in tier 3 intervention and instructional coaching but wants to strengthen sustainability and support her wider team. Moana is supporting Mata, a Year 5 learner receiving tailored intervention.
Both teachers work with ākonga who have not made expected progress through universal instruction alone — and who now require additional support through targeted or tailored instruction.
To illustrate how their instructional decisions differ, we’re focusing on one element of structured literacy approaches — spelling. Let’s look at oral segmentation of phonemes and syllables, and learning from grapheme–phoneme correspondence.
Supporting Thomas through targeted instruction
Thomas is a Year 1 learner receiving targeted support. Despite quality classroom teaching, he is still developing key phonological awareness skills. He struggles with blending and segmenting sounds, has difficulty applying grapheme–phoneme correspondence, and lacks confidence when attempting unfamiliar words. These gaps are preventing him from progressing as expected in reading and spelling.
For Thomas, and others in his targeted intervention group, this support builds on the universal teaching already happening in class. It’s designed to accelerate progress through additional, explicit instruction — activities like Elkonin boxes, segmenting routines, oral rehearsal, and self-review.
But it's not just the content that matters — it’s the way it’s delivered.
Thomas’s teacher Sarah applies adaptive practice by anticipating where he might struggle — such as with working memory or auditory discrimination — and proactively plans supports like repetition, pacing, and visual scaffolds.
During teaching, she observes carefully, reframes questions when needed, checks for understanding with quick response tools, and adjusts based on what she sees. This ensures every moment of teaching is purposeful and responsive.
For a learner like Thomas, this might also include small-group instruction focused on blending and segmenting, supported by explicit spelling routines and oral rehearsal. Sarah may also pre-teach content in a small group before classroom instruction — a front-loading approach that enhances participation and confidence in whole-class teaching.
For Thomas, the instruction is short, focused, and builds on what’s already happening in the classroom. It’s designed to accelerate progress by giving him the precision teaching needed to close specific gaps.
Supporting Mata through tailored intervention
Mata is a Year 5 learner with dyslexia, ADHD, and dyspraxia. Despite high oral language strengths and strong classroom relationships, she experiences significant difficulty with reading, spelling, and writing fluency. Her working memory, attention regulation, and motor coordination challenges compound the demands of literacy tasks. Mata’s needs are complex and persistent — and she requires an instructional approach that is individualised, highly scaffolded, and sustained over time.
For Mata, the support is tailored to her needs. Moana, her teacher, knows she needs an individualised, highly scaffolded, multisensory approach.
Lessons focus explicitly on orally segmenting phonemes and syllables, and building strong grapheme–phoneme connections using tools like Elkonin boxes, sound–letter mapping, and tactile resources such as magnetic letters or textured writing surfaces.
Tasks are broken into small, manageable steps, with consistent routines, repetition, and movement-based activities embedded to support memory and motor planning.
Moana carefully scaffolds each activity, using visual cues, verbal modelling, and technology where appropriate. She adapts instruction in response to Mata’s language and communication needs, collaborating with a teacher aide to ensure consistent, reinforced support.
These adaptations aren’t about simplifying content — they are purposeful strategies to remove barriers while holding high expectations.
A multisensory approach — such as saying sounds aloud while writing letters — is used to strengthen the neural connections between speech, print, and movement. Strategies such as segmenting, blending, and visual imagery are also incorporated to reinforce spelling recall and application.
The intervention includes structured routines, clear instructions, and frequent feedback to support Mata’s executive functioning needs. Instruction is continuously shaped by progress monitoring and data analysis, ensuring that it remains targeted, responsive, and effective.
When the work is adaptive, the PLD must be too
Sarah and Moana aren’t real teachers — but their stories come from real classrooms. Real teachers. Real ākonga.
They remind us that when we ask teachers to deliver targeted and tailored instruction, we’re asking them to hold complexity. Teachers need to design instruction that is diagnostic, cumulative, responsive, and adaptable.
We can’t expect that kind of precision to emerge from PLD designed to support universal instruction.
Tāwhirihia was designed with care, because the work it supports is complex. It offers structure, feedback, time, and tools. But more than that, it offers teachers a chance to feel confident doing difficult things well.
And when that happens, we see change where it matters most — in the learner who finally starts to move forward.
Tāwhirihia is available free of charge to one teacher in schools that have received Ministry approval to access targeted and tailored PLD through the structured literacy approaches staffing entitlement.
It is also available as a school-funded option for teachers who are supporting ākonga with similar learning needs but who are not eligible through the Ministry-funded pathway.
If you’re looking for structured, responsive PLD that builds real capability in targeted and tailored instruction, we’d love to talk.
About the author
Kaye Brunton oversees the Evaluation Associates | Te Huinga Kākākura Mātauranga structured literacy approaches courses and PLD as the project manager for this mahi. With a background in primary and intermediate education, leadership, and Ministry advisory roles, Kaye brings a deep understanding of what it takes to build sustainable, school-wide capability. She supports the team designing and delivering Tāwhirihia, ensuring it meets the needs of teachers supporting ākonga who require more.