Strong literacy skills 'are vital'

December 09 2010

The country is storing up problems for the future if children do not gain the literacy skills they need to succeed at school and throughout their adult lives.

This is the opinion of Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, who said the UK's literacy ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment survey published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is "extremely disappointing".

"Most worrying of all is that children in the UK from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately likely to struggle with literacy. In fact, the UK has one of the strongest links between socio-economic background and literacy performance of all the countries that took part," he commented.

The National Literacy Trust is committed to breaking this cycle by helping schools, communities and families to improve their literacy skills.

Education secretary Michael Gove announced earlier this month that schoolchildren are to be given phonics-based reading progress checks in future at the age of six.

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