Welcome to SPCA's Education Shop

By purchasing SPCA's Instructional Readers you are helping to nurture the hearts and minds of the younger generation and inspire a kinder, more compassionate Aotearoa for animals and people.

SPCA's Instructional Readers help children to both improve their reading skills
and learn to care for and respect animals.

Instructional Reader Collection

Why SPCA's Instructional Readers?

Ministry of Education colour wheel aligned

Levelled in alignment with the Ministry of Education's colour wheel, schools can seamlessly integrate these resources into their existing reader collections and classroom literacy programmes.

Supporting resources for teachers

On SPCA’s Teachers’ Portal - Resources for Schools teachers can find free teaching notes and reading response activities for each of the twenty-four titles.

The teaching notes suggest ways teachers can use the texts in instructional settings to support the learning needs of their students. While the suggested reading response activities, available in English and te reo Māori, help to extend and consolidate children’s learning.

Teachers can also download PDF versions of the Companion Animals and Farmed Animal instructional reader series in gagana Sāmoa, lea faka-Tonga and Mandarin Chinese. When used alongside the English versions of each reader, our translated editions have the added value of supporting children’s learning of additional languages, nurturing children’s first language/s, whilst strengthening their English language and literacy development.

English and te reo Māori Editions

SPCA feels strongly about ensuring resources we create for children and schools are as widely accessible as possible. This is why SPCA developed, printed and distributed English and te reo Māori editions of instructional readers. SPCA is incredibly grateful to Sunshine Books and Huia Publishers for guiding this nuanced and important work.

Thanks to generous grants and donations from some of our supporters passionate about animal welfare education, SPCA are thrilled to have been able to gift sets of our instructional readers to every primary and intermediate school in Aotearoa New Zealand. This means all children, teachers, parents and whānau can access and enjoy the same quality animal welfare education.

Base on real-world SPCA animal stories

The Companion Animals and Farmed Animals series are based on real-life SPCA animal rescues, and contain messages about animal care, animal welfare, and tips for families on how to be responsible pet owners. Animals in the Wild is all about children taking positive action to help protect animals and their environments in kind and compassionate ways. Responsible Animal Guardianship (ownership) explores a number of key animal welfare topics, such as animal abandonment and adoption.

The stories have been crafted to encourage children to think deeply about their relationships with animals and how their choices and actions matter and can have a really significant impact on the lives of animals. We want children to think of themselves as animal guardians and to view all animals as valued members of our communities that need their care and protection.

Making difference for NZ's animals

The focus of SPCA’s Education Programme is to nurture young hearts and minds around the country. Here at SPCA, we know that children are the animal guardians of tomorrow, and working with them is a vital step in achieving our long-term vision of preventing animal cruelty in New Zealand.

SPCA's Instructional Readers play a crucial role in achieving this vision.