Education Minister Erica Stanford has received some backlash by excluding most Māori words from five-year-olds' school phonics books.
A Ministry of Education report shows Stanford decided to exclude all Māori kupu - except characters' names - last year, out of concern it would confuse children.
Canterbury University's professor Gail Gillon helped develop the phonics readers.
She says confusion doesn't appear to be an issue.
"The evidence that we have would suggest that our five-year-old children are coping very well with the inclusion of just a few kupu Māori in these early readers."
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