The growing cohort of kids starting school who can ‘barely string two words together’.
Hanna McCallum, August 30, 2025 — Senior Education Reporter, The Post
Karena Shannon, a primary teacher and speech language therapist is the founder of Oracy Aotearoa, an organisation advocating to improve oracy skills among 3 to 6 year olds.
Braden Fastier/Nelson Mail
Imagine being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. You want to buy something, ask for directions, interact, participate, express your opinion, but the best you can do is cobble together the two or three words you learnt on Duolingo.
That is the closest example Karena Shannon can give for the experience of about 94,000 tamariki (children) in Aotearoa who haven’t developed the oral communication skills required when they start school.
“It's exhausting to try and work out your world without those basic building blocks that we rely on to relate and work with others ... negotiate conflict and tell people how we feel,” she says.
Shannon, the founder of Oracy Aotearoa, has worked in education for more than four decades and believes children’s ability to speak and use language to express themselves has got worse.
She is often “gob-smacked” at the lack of vocabulary that tamariki getting ready for school have. Even a simple question of “how did you get to school today?” leads to the lowering of a head and no answer.
Some can barely string two words together, she says.
“It’s the every day little things ... I think oracy skill is the biggest predictor of how their educational journey is going to be.”
Oracy is defined as the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech. Oracy Aotearoa advocates for the importance of oracy, providing resources to help improve speech among tamariki between 3 and 6 years old.
Shannon expects the numbers to grow if there is not enough emphasis on the importance of oracy and how to improve it.
Already she believes it has become intergenerational.
Waiting till a child arrives at school to tackle the problem makes it a “steep climb” and much more difficult than putting in supports early, she says.
It often leaves children isolated when they aren’t able to communicate to make friends or express their needs, and can lead to behavioural issues as a result.
“It feels very urgent because the long term effects are broad and serious; the likelihood of negative employment outcomes, mental health, youth justice, all of that’s well documented.
“We want every child starting school with the confidence and communication skills they need to thrive.“
Del Costello (she/her), Coactive Education director and education consultant, is concerned about the growing gap in oracy skills between the ability of children of different socio-economic backgrounds. Image Supplied
Del Costello, director of professional learning development provider Coactive Education, says up until this year, oral language had not been “front and centre of the foundation of curriculums”.
It was positive to see a change in priority of oral language, she says.
The curriculum refresh and the release of Te Mātaiaho set out much clearer guidelines and expectations of oral communication development in the refreshed English learning areas for Year 0-6.
In the previous curriculum, elements of oral language, such as speaking and presenting, were spread across the English strands but the teaching sequence in the refreshed curriculum contains three strands: oral language, reading, and writing.
This recognises the key contribution oral language development makes to wider learning, particularly in the early years of schooling,” Pauline Cleaver, acting deputy secretary, curriculum at the Ministry of Education, says.
The general consensus among teachers is that a lack of oracy has a definite impact on wider curriculum learning, as well as impact on mental health and well-being, Costello says.
“At high school you're reading to learn, not learning to read … but at some point explicit teaching has to happen.”
Costello is concerned about the growing gap in the ability of children of different socio-economic backgrounds and how much emphasis is put on the value of oral communication.
“For most people, you're exposed, you learn to talk through being immersed in a language-rich environment and when that continues, it develops.
“But when you take away the language-rich environments that we want to immerse our children in, or you limit or restrict them, then it has a lasting impact.”
New Zealand is “incredibly linguistically diverse for a small country”, she says. “We should be leveraging the strengths of our whānau in terms of their home language – research is clear, if you’re strong in one language, it’s very easy to be strong in two when you are young.”
The impact of Covid-19 on oral language development
In 2024, an Education Review Office report highlighted concerns about the impact of Covid-19 on oral language development among children aged up to 7 years old.
While most children’s oral language was developing well, there was a significant group – one in five – who were behind and Covid-19 made it worse, according to the report Let’s keep talking: Oral language development in the early years.
The pandemic limited children’s social interactions and increased screen time, reducing opportunities to develop oral language.
A new entrant teacher in the report said the majority of students missed ECE during Covid-19 and were often at home on devices with very little input from whānau. “I do wonder if they were spoken to, as many from this cohort have extremely poor oral language.”
Children’s vocabulary at age 2 was strongly linked to their literacy and numeracy achievement at age 12, and delays in oral language in the early years reflected in poor reading comprehension at school, the report said.
ECE played a key role in children’s oral language and literacy development, particularly for children in low socio-economic communities, but fewer children were attending ECE than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the reduction was even bigger for those of low socio-economic backgrounds.
One teacher in the report said a lot of children were not able to communicate their needs. “They are difficult to understand when they speak. They are not used to having conversations.”
The report said parents and whānau in lower socio-economic communities could have less time and fewer resources to support oral language development at home. Parents and whānau surveyed with lower qualifications were also more likely to report their child having at least some difficulty with oral language.
But Shannon believes early intervention can be as simple as whānau speaking to their children about their day, what they are doing, and why they are doing it.
“They’re not receiving that stimulation and support and encouragement that is what underpins language development.
“We don’t usually have to show our kids how to walk, [but] talking is different, you have to nurture that development actively.”
Shannon says daily conversations with tamariki, asking them about their day and getting them to explain what they are doing and why, can go a long way to developing oracy skills among tamariki before school.
Braden Fastier/Nelson Mail
It did not have to be implemented in a rigorous way like doing an hour of literacy and numeracy every day, but there was a lot of emphasis on reading and maths for tamariki when Shannon sees oracy as “the third leg of the stool”; without adequate oracy skills, it has an impact on the other two – and further education in general, she says.
“The busier you are [as parents], the more you've got to talk about ... I want them to talk about what they're doing because frequently that busyness involves children – they are there, so I don't want them to just be observers on the sideline, I want them to be involved.”
The criteria to get access to speech and language therapists are strict and they are in huge demand. But most children don’t need professional support ‒ the issues are environmental, she says.
In her career as a teacher from early childhood education to tertiary level and also as a speech language therapist, Shannon has seen the effects of having, or lacking, oracy skills.
While Aotearoa lagged behind other countries in emphasising oracy skills, it has been documented in multiple reports over decades “but we want to do something about it”, she says.
The drastic difference in outcomes meant it shouldn’t be something left to chance.
“Just those everyday conversations, talking about what is happening in your day is of critical importance to developing language in young children.”
At the high school level, English Teachers Association president Pip Tinning, says there is a slight increase in reluctance to engage in the formal delivery of oral language in the classroom.
Her students at Pāpāmoa College did not always have the vocabulary to articulate what they are trying to express, she says.
“Our students are really capable of communicating if it's super important to them but you can be sitting there trying to start a class discussion and there's crickets and tumbleweeds happening, so sometimes [they’re] not as confident to communicate what it is they're thinking.”
Tinning also believes there is a fear growing among young people to make mistakes which has an impact.
“I think now it’s a lot easier for what someone says to be taken and distributed quite widely.”
While technology also has an impact on attention spans, she questions whether it has a flow-on effect on young people’s ability to stay engaged in conversation.
But it is important young people are “incredibly articulate”, Tinning says.
“They need to know that what they’re listening to makes sense, that they can pick up the BS when it’s coming through, or the misinformation, the disinformation ... but also that they’re being thoughtful and honest and truthful and supporting what they’re saying when they say it.”
Speech and drama teacher Rebecca Reed says anyone can learn to be a good speaker.
DAVID UNWIN / The Post
Growing confidence in using your voice and language
Rebecca Reed started teaching speech, drama and public speaking abut five years ago. She teaches about 70 students across Sacred Heart College and St Oran’s College in the Hutt Valley.
She has seen “all types of young people from all walks of life” but every person can learn to be a good speaker, Reed says.
The focus is often on the basics; to speak clearly, use eye contact, emphasis for an inflection and to bring “talk to life” so people listen and engage.
“You need to be able to have these skills,” she says, “and they're not going to go away any time soon”.
Speech NZ, an education provider, supports teachers in the classroom to deliver oral communication or sends out itinerant teachers to deliver standards instead.
Executive manager Helena Coulton says teachers are being asked to deliver standards in oral communication which they were not taught explicitly themselves or in teacher training.
“What we’re doing is helping them understand how you can implement oral communication skills and training to ensure that students feel empowered and feel like they can use those skills in every aspect of their life.”
Helena Coulton, executive manager for Speech NZ, says people often use their services if they can afford to do so and is concerned about equity issues around oral language development.
JONATHAN ABPLAN ALP
She has two children, aged 5 and 10, and the impact of Covid-19 is noticeable, she says. It took her 5-year-old longer to develop his oral language. While in secondary school, she witnesses senior students having less confidence to engage socially or to put themselves out there.
But people used its services, if they have the financial means to do so.
Coulton is hopeful Speech NZ will receive funding to help reach more students.
Oral language allows the understanding of nuances and ability to be empathetic, she says.
“I think we risk losing the humanity of one another if we don't ensure that our oral language skills are kept up with the development of technology.”
For Aaliyah Middleton, growing up as a twin, she had the tendency to let her sister do all the talking.
Their kindergarten teachers would say how she would let her sister take the lead, while Middleton would “sit back and watch”.
She describes herself as “a shy kid” back then.
Aaliyah Middleton now teaches at St Oran’s College where she graduated last year and enjoys watching her students’ confidence grow through speech and drama.
DAVID UNWIN / The Post
But being put into speech and drama class when she was in year 4 turned around her confidence. “It completely changed the way I saw myself,” she says.
“It kind of taught me that your voice can be developed, and the more you learn how you can change it and control it, I think the more confidence you have to use it.”
After graduating from St Oran’s College in Lower Hutt, Wellington last year, Middleton decided to go back to the college to teach year 7 speech and drama.
What she enjoys most is seeing students who were shy like her, grow in confidence. She always emphasises that “everyone has a story worth sharing”.
If it wasn’t for taking speech and drama classes, Middleton doesn’t think she would have taken opportunities that led to her being deputy head girl and head of college council in her last year. She wouldn’t have had the confidence to stand in front of the whole school or lead choirs, or apply to jobs knowing she could communicate well.
“I think oral communication, it can't be replaced,” she says. “Your voice isn't there just to communicate orally, but it’s there to express you, who you are.”
