In response to the recommendations of the Literacy Taskforce Report (1999) and issues highlighted in the Green Paper - Assessment for Success in Primary Schools (1998), the Ministry of Education funded a project in 2000 and 2001 to develop a description of achievement in reading and writing for five-year-old Māori medium students. This provided the opportunity to take a systematic comprehensive look at children’s literacy performance during the first two years of instruction and begin to identify reasonable expectations of progress in reading, written and oral language.