Matt Johnson: Reading figures a national disgrace

Nov 21 2007 by Matt Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

ANOTHER week, and another policy from Her Majesty's Opposition. This week, the Tory spotlight is shining in the corners of the education system.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said English assessments for six and seven-year-olds should be replaced with a standard reading test.

Other measures are also to be outlined by the Conservatives in an attempt to narrow the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children in England.

Mr Gove says his party believes that, by the time a child has been through two years of primary school, "they should have mastered the building blocks of reading."

Clearly in his stride during a BBC interview, he went on to say: "Unless they learn to read properly they won't be able to read to learn subsequently, and this is the key foundation stone on which the rest of learning is built. We want to introduce a simple test, which means at the end of two years of primary school we know whether or not children have mastered the skills they need to read. Once children have got that skill, then teachers are free to inspire them, and children are free to read and explore on their own."

Mr Gove added that 20% of children leaving primary school were incapable of read- ing, rising to 40% of children from poorer backgrounds.

The statistics are worrying, not least because there is a link between the way some children under-achieve and the way some go on to become disruptive, or truants.

Look again at that first statistic. One fifth of children leaving primary school in England are incapable of reading. Surely that's a national disgrace, isn't it?

If a fifth of our school starters are making such a shaky start, it's no wonder educational attainment is so mixed later on.

By coincidence, this week also saw the launch by Amazon of a wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.

The paperback-sized device is on sale in the US for $399. It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory, and . content arrives wirelessly.

Amazon says 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.

A digital, wireless book reader? Is that going to help or hinder teachers and their pupils striving to master those building blocks Mr Gove referred to?

* MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group.