Welcome to SPCA’s Instructional Readers

Every New Zealand primary and intermediate school has been gifted six free copies of all 24 readers, have a look for them in your school today!

Levelled in alignment with the Ministry of Education’s colour wheel, schools can integrate our readers seamlessly into their instructional reader collections and their classroom literacy programmes.

The SPCA wants to eliminate as many barriers as possible to children accessing these valuable learning resources, so thanks to the incredible financial assistance of our supporters and community grants, SPCA has provided six copies of each of our twenty-four titles free to every New Zealand primary and intermediate school. Have a look for them in your school’s reading resource room now!

The focus of each original story is to teach core animal care and wellbeing lessons, through engaging, emotive and thought-provoking stories, while increasing children’s reading mileage and supporting the development of their reading skills and strategies.

With a website link located within each book, children and their families are directed to the relevant sections of our Kids’ Portal at www.spca.nz/kids. Here children can read further factual information already introduced by the stories, watch videos, take a quiz, interact and share – making it the perfect tool to link homes, schools and the SPCA.

Here on SPCA's Teachers' Portal, you will find downloadable PDFs of each reader, free teaching notes and reading response activities for each of the twenty-four texts. Our teaching notes suggest ways teachers can use the texts in instructional settings to support the learning needs of their students. Our suggested post-reading activities help to extend and consolidate children’s understanding of selected key animal care concepts, increase their empathy for the animal characters within the stories and of course support the development of their reading skills and strategies.

If your school would like to purchase additional hard copies for your school's collection, please email education@spca.nz