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Neale Pitches, formerly principal of Onslow College, now heads an organisation which employs 55 staff and contracts many more to write and illustrate publications in six media. Its expected turnover for this financial year is about $12 million and it has just carried off an international publishing coup with the United States release of 140 of New Zealand's best children's books and learning materials. For Pitches, the outstanding success of Learning Media Literacy's launch at the all-important International Reading Association's annual conference, held last month in Atlanta, Georgia, is a realisation of Learning Media's mission to become recognised as a highly successful international publisher.
For the new collection, popular ready-to-read titles have been re- designed for a contemporary look; words have been changed where necessary - Mum to Mom is the most obvious - and books re- illustrated to portray Native American, African-American and Hispanic children and their families. Margaret Mahy's A Good Knee For A Cat, about a child in a wheelchair, has been given a Hispanic flavour by US illustrator Lydia Halverson, and the children renamed Blanca, Juan and Anna.
Remember sitting on the mat in class, waiting for that heart- thudding moment when it was your turn to read aloud? It's a different scene these days, Ann Packer writes.
THERE'S been a quiet revolution since the days of Janet and John, when the baby boomers learned to read - or suffered humiliation at best, and illiteracy at worst, if they failed.
Today's children are turned on to reading by some of the world's best writers, assisted by the artistic talents of some highly accomplished illustrators.
It's a revolution led by New Zealanders, and the driving force has been one of the best kept secrets of New Zealand publishing. The organisation affectionately known in primary staffrooms as "School Pubs", which produces the 90-year-old School Journal, became in 1993 Learning Media, a Crown-owned company with a board of directors, chief executive and commercial brief.
Neale Pitches, formerly principal of Onslow College, now heads an organisation which employs 55 staff and contracts many more to write and illustrate publications in six media. Its expected turnover for this financial year is about $12 million and it has just carried off an international publishing coup with the United States release of 140 of New Zealand's best children's books and learning materials. For Pitches, the outstanding success of Learning Media Literacy's launch at the all-important International Reading Association's annual conference, held last month in Atlanta, Georgia, is a realisation of Learning Media's mission to become recognised as a highly successful international publisher.
Pitches believes a passion for literacy and attention to detail are what have helped the New Zealand company be such a big hit on the US market.
For the new collection, popular ready-to-read titles have been re- designed for a contemporary look; words have been changed where necessary - Mum to Mom is the most obvious - and books re- illustrated to portray Native American, African-American and Hispanic children and their families. Margaret Mahy's A Good Knee For A Cat, about a child in a wheelchair, has been given a Hispanic flavour by US illustrator Lydia Halverson, and the children renamed Blanca, Juan and Anna.
Reading the New Zealand way (we avoid the phonics vs whole language debate) focuses on what's known as "guided reading", where the teacher helps a small group of children - all of whom have a copy of the book - to talk, think and read their way through it. Building confidence and skills, and developing positive attitudes to reading is what it's all about. They are never "hung out to dry", as Learning Media's international publishing manager Lois Thompson puts it, by being asked to read new text.
Thompson, a veteran school publisher, describes the Atlanta experience as a "baptism by fire". "American teachers loved not just the children's books but the teacher guides that go with them. It took our breath away really."
An important element in the new series is the number of non- fiction titles - "informational texts", as they're called in the US. Pitches, who believes fervently that even very young children should be reading for information as well as pleasure, says: "Most guided reading programmes are fiction, so this is a way of differentiating our product."
The School Journal has long been a training ground for some of our best-loved writers and illustrators. Such renowned artists as Dick Frizzell, and more recently Trevor Pye, Christine Ross and Murray Grimsdale have enhanced the stories, poems and plays of award- winning authors like Mahy, Joy Cowley, Jack Lasenby and Diana Noonan, now editor of the parts three and four School Journal.
Nurturing new talent has long been part of the role of Learning Media. As part of the School Journal's 90th birthday celebrations a recent workshop for new Pacific Island and Maori writers will result in more texts in community languages, to add to an already impressive record in Maori and Pacific Islands publishing.
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CAPTION: BY GEORGE - George's Monster, with pictures by Murray Grimsdale (left) and text by Amanda Jackson, won the Russell Clark Medal for illustration.
Copyright Independent Newspapers, Ltd. Jul 26, 1997