Melissa Chan-Green

So we are joined by Ondi Ford and Carolyn Masson from Ready for Learning.

Kia ora.

Thank you so much for being with us, ladies.

Ondi and Carolyn.

Kia ora.

Co-founders of Ready for Learning.

What does Ready for Learning mean?

When are you ready for learning?

Yeah, because so what you're doing and you're saying is, look, in New Zealand and in other countries around the world, we typically have children start school when they are five.

How do you best prepare those children for being ready at five?

And what are you seeing in terms of school readiness at the moment?

Listening.

Do you think that COVID made us pay more attention and go, oh, hang on, we're noticing these challenges and...

We attributed it to COVID, but perhaps it was just actually that we started to go, we really need to have a look at what's happening here.

So with structured literacy, I mean, so much of the science around that is how do you scaffold children so they don't have to hold a lot in their working memory and they take, you know, one step at a time.

And I guess this is what you're saying is similar in that you're saying that

Actually, if they can't just sit on, feel comfortable sitting on the mat or they're worried about, you know, the way they're feeling that day, then they can't actually even start moving through those steps.

How much of a difference can parents play?

And we'll get into the more kind of specific things that you can do.

But how much...