Literacy campaign champions early education role

A coalition of charities, educators and business leaders including Save the Children, the National Association of Head Teachers and the National Literacy Trust, have come together to form the Read On. Get On campaign, which aims to get all 11-year-olds reading well by 2025.

It has been backed by a report that finds four in 10 disadvantaged children are not reading well by the time they finish primary school, almost double the rate for children from more affluent backgrounds. It finds that only Romania has a bigger gap than the UK between the strongest and weakest readers after seven years of school.

The coalition says improving early education is key to narrowing this reading attainment gap – on average, children from poor backgrounds are 18 months behind more affluent peers by the time they reach reception class – and want to work with early years experts to ensure all five-year-olds achieve good language development by 2020.

The report states: “The chances of children born today growing up to reading well by the end of primary school will be hugely influenced by the first five years of their life. It will be affected by what happens in the home – including the quality of the support and advice their parents receive – as well as by how well early education, childcare and children’s services support children’s language development.”

The current measure of communication and language development within the Early Years Foundation Stage becomes optional in 2016, when a new baseline assessment at age four will be introduced. The coalition says it will look at other options for measuring progress in improving reading ability, including the possibility of the campaign carrying out an independent assessment of its own.

It plans to publish further details next year of how it will achieve the 2020 target.

Dame Julia Cleverdon, chair of the Read On. Get On. coalition, said: “It is tragic and unfair that children from the poorest families and the most deprived communities are least likely to read well at the age of 11 in the UK.

“Four out of 10 children on free school meals who struggle to read will also struggle to gain the educational opportunities and life chances that they need to flourish. This vital long-term campaign with broad-based energetic support aims to make a life-changing difference both for children in poverty and for our society.”

The campaign’s research also shows that a quarter of 11-year-olds in the poorest families have fewer than 10 books in their home, text messages and websites are the most common forms of reading by children, and that getting all children reading well by the age of 11 could boost the economy by £32bn by 2025.