A former schools minister who championed the Evening Standard’s literacy campaign has revealed that reading was the issue closest to his heart.
Nick Gibb, who visited the school at the centre of the campaign, said more needs to be done to boost literacy. In an interview with Attain, the magazine for private schools, he said an “unacceptable” one in five children were still leaving primary school struggling to read well.
Mr Gibb visited St Mary’s RC primary in Battersea last year to hear how children did in their Sats following the introduction of a team of reading volunteers who worked with the pupils. He said he was “enormously grateful to the Evening Standard” after hearing that results had leapt in the space of a year.
Mr Gibb is a supporter of the phonics system of teaching reading and was instrumental in introducing the phonic check — a test for six-year-olds to see if they can “decode” words.
Referring to statistics which show that 44 per cent of boys eligible for free school meals do not reach required standards in reading, writing and maths compared with three quarters of other 11-year-olds, he said: “It’s just unacceptable. And so something did have to be done to tackle that and I am absolutely convinced that in the years ahead we will see that gap between children from poorer families and those from well-off families closing as a result of this more systematic approach to teaching reading.” Mr Gibb was minister for schools for two and a half year before a reshuffle last September.
