Literacy Expert and Author Wins Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal

Jill Eggleton, QSO, internationally recognised as a literacy consultant, teacher and author, has won Storylines’ top award, the Margaret Mahy Medal given annually for lifetime achievement and an outstanding contribution to New Zealand children’s literature and literacy.

The literacy programmes she implemented first as a classroom teacher in primary schools, then as an assistant principal are widely used in New Zealand schools. For the past 25 years she has worked as a literacy consultant, earning international acclaim from teachers and administrators in schools in America, Canada, Scotland, South Africa, Asia, Dubai, Australia and the Czech Republic.  She is also in demand as a keynote speaker at global conferences, and to run professional development at universities, including the University of Sioux Falls University, South Dakota, where she is adjunct professor.

‘This Storylines award acknowledges Jill Eggleton’s outstanding contribution to children’s literacy development in New Zealand, and internationally,’ says Storylines chair Dr Libby Limbrick. ‘Besides her own phenomenal output, her advocacy for high quality literature in literacy education has been inspirational for teachers, thus encouraging children to engage with and love reading.’

As an author, Jill Eggleton has published several books on classroom practice for teachers, her best-known title Linking the Language Strands (now sold as Lighting the Literacy Fire) achieving global sales of more than 80,000 copies in English and French.

For children, she is the co-author of more than 800 ‘school readers’ in the highly acclaimed Sails reading programme, with global sales to date of some 55 million copies to schools in New Zealand, America, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, France, Canada and Ireland.

Her advocacy for all aspects of children’s development in literacy has also been backed up by series of shared and guided reading books, and most recently, e-books and digital apps, always with an emphasis on the strong links between home and school.  Jill Eggleton was awarded the QSO in 2010.

She will receive the Margaret Mahy Medal and present the Margaret Mahy Address in Auckland on Thursday 27 August during the annual Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators. This public event is to be held at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education, Epsom Campus on Thursday 27 August.      

Previous winners of the Margaret Mahy Medal  include authors Joy Cowley, David Hill, Fleur Beale and Kate de Goldi, illustrators Gavin Bishop, Lynley Dodd and David Elliot, and publishers Ann Mallinson and Barbara Larsen.