Ready to Read Phonics Plus Kākano, Māhuri, Rākau Activities – 2026 Update

Description

This resource provides follow-up activities and home-learning tasks for five new (June 2026) Ready to Read Phonics Plus readers found in New Zealand schools. An engaging format is used to develop your students’ sense of agency and independence – perfect for your reading rotations.

Texts Covered in this resource:

• Sam and Dad – Kākano
• Fun with Nan – Kākano
• A Good Choice – Māhuri
• The Ghostly Surprise – Rākau
• A Storm on the Shore – Rākau

These activities meet many of the requirements for the New Zealand Literacy Skills Progressions for Reading at the End of Year One and Two. These are skills that your students need!

***This resource is provided in A4 paper size and British spelling.***

In this Ready to Read Phonics Plus Resource pack you will receive:

1. 10 engaging follow-up activities based on 5 readers (two per reader):

• Each activity sheet has a QR code to an audio link and picture cues to help students understand their task.

Each book in the series has two pages of activities to match the instructional focus. Teachers can choose for students to complete one or both of the sheets, depending on the goal of the lesson.

2. 10 home learning activity sheets (2 per reader).

Each activity sheet features:

• Focus sounds, words to blend and high-frequency words that are specific to the text.
• Encoding practice of specific sounds in the text.
• A practice activity, focusing on the decoding / encoding of the text OR a comprehension feature such as retelling, making personal connections or comprehending simple sentences.
• Oral discussion questions, including a drawing to show comprehension prompt.
• High-frequency word encoding practice.
• Cloze activity for sentence-level comprehension

Texts Covered in this Resource:

• Sam and Dad – Kākano
• Fun with Nan – Kākano
• A Good Choice – Māhuri
• The Ghostly Surprise – Rākau
• A Storm on the Shore – Rākau

Alignment with Te Mātaiaho: English in the New Zealand Curriculum

This resource has been created to carefully align with the teaching sequence and teaching considerations for Phase 1.

Please note: To use this resource, you need to have access to the Ready to Read Phonics Plus Māhiri, Kākano Level readers. These are found in NZ schools and here.

Answers have not been included.