Background
Why do we need Every Child A Reader?
Many things can go wrong for children, some preventable - some not. Every single issue that prevents them being safe, healthy, happy and successful needs tackling. But there is one problem where prevention should be easy, and where the impact of not intervening is life-long, particularly for children who start their lives in poverty. This is literacy failure.
Literacy Failure
Some 6% of children (including nearly 1 in 10 boys) leave primary school and go into secondary education without even the most basic skills in reading and writing. The percentage of such children has remained static nationally over the last five years, at a time when literacy standards as a whole have risen steadily in our primary schools.
Proven tools exist to lift children out of early literacy failure and keep them there, but they are not being used. Intervention that works for children with severe literacy difficulties is expensive. The costs of failure to make early effective provision are, however, even higher. If their difficulties are not resolved, such children cost the education system approximately £2.5 billion a year through year-on-year special educational needs provision.
Truancy, disaffection and behavioural problems are other hidden costs of literacy failure. Some 70% of pupils permanently excluded from school have difficulties in basic literacy skills.
The impact extends beyond school, contributing in adult life to mental health problems and involvement with the criminal justice system. It is estimated, for example, that 60% of the prison population has difficulties in basic literacy skills. Poverty is another consequence. The number of adults in England with poor literacy skills now stands at 5.2 million. Adults with poor literacy skills are more likely to be in low paid jobs, unemployed or dependent upon state benefits. They are also more likely to have poor housing and poor health.
Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is a teaching programme aimed at children who, after one year of schooling, show they are struggling to learn to read and to write. Evidence suggests that this is the optimum period for intervention: any later, and the effects of not being able to read on the child's self confidence and attitudes to learning make remediation increasingly difficult. Children taking part in Reading Recovery receive individual tuition from specially trained teachers for half an hour daily over three to four months. The cost is approximately £2,000 - £2,500 per child.
The results are impressive. Those targeted are the very lowest achieving in their class, yet eight out of ten children who complete the programme achieve national targets a year later and the majority maintain this level throughout their education. Widespread implementation of Reading Recovery would reduce the 'long tail of under-achievement', those leaving primary school without even the very basic literacy skills, from 7% to a minimum of 2-3%.
