Mary Andrew created a fresh method of teaching to get parents and children to learn words together.
When Mary Andrew first started teaching in Morrinsville in the mid-60s she was deeply concerned to find that one-in-ten children had a reading age far below that of their classmates. As well, those same children also had spelling difficulties.
It wasn't the fault of current teaching methods, Mrs Andrew discovered. The large class sizes meant that teachers had little time for individual tuition with strugglers.
At first, Mrs Andrew wondered why the parents didn't help. She found out that they simply didn't know how.
Creating The Programme
So she set about creating a new method of teaching reading and spelling that could be used at home or in the classroom.
The programme uses a step-by-step guide to the basic sounds of letters and combinations of letters, such as 'ce' as in fence, 'tion' as in action, and so on. The learner is shown a picture on the back of a card, and then asked to read the word and pronounce the sound made by each letter group. Memorising key words lets the reading flow, and means that patterns of sounds can be recalled for spelling or reading.
Mrs Andrew did not promote her system as an alternative to the reading and spelling methods used in schools but as a support for these methods, yet she was criticised by the New Zealand Education Department.
She was undeterred.
"I am outside the department; I'm 59 and can jolly well say what I like."
During her 30-year fight against illiteracy, Mary Andrew sold 20,000 copies of her programme material. The kit contains a copy of her book Reading and Spelling Made Simple, an alphabet letter case, sight word cards, a parents' video guide and teacher manual. Mrs Andrew put in $50,000 of her money to get it published because she felt the need was so urgent. Today the Mary Andrew Literacy Training Trust is financed by sales of the programme, through its website www.SimplyReading.com
Mrs Andrew was a late starter in the teaching field, attending training college in Hamilton when the youngest of her three children was at school. A spell as a librarian at Morrinsville College had instilled an appetite for teaching and encouraging a love of reading in children.
Her plan to teach parents and children together came when she realised how much parents already taught their children.
"Of course parents can do it," she said in an interview in 1989. "After all, who helped the children to talk, to feed themselves, and potty-trained them?"
She also reassured parents that reading and spelling difficulties are not caused by a lack of intelligence or laziness. Some may be because of hearing or sight problems, poor diet or allergies. Poor self-esteem and lack of confidence were also major factors, said Mrs Andrew.
Even after her retirement from classroom teaching, and enduring health problems, Mrs Andrew continued to travel the country giving seminars to teacher groups. Her time at home was spent in the garage packing components of the programme to send to Australian and New Zealand customers.
Mrs Andrew died on Sunday [29th October 2006]. She is survived by her husband, David, children Robert, Heather and Don, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.