The Education Minister's confident successful primary school literacy results aren't just low hanging fruit.

Results from the new phonics literacy programme show 58% of students are at or above expectations after 20 weeks.

More than 40% of students exceeded expectations in Term 3 – more than double the first term.

Erica Stanford says they're tracking where they hoped.

But she told Mike Hosking this couldn't be achieved by just anyone and required a government who was prepared to follow the science.

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