The case for early investment in eradicating literacy failure

1. Key facts and issues

1.1 Where does it all start? 6% of children leave primary school with no useful literacy skills (attaining below National Curriculum Level 3 in reading and writing). In 2005 thirty-eight per cent of these children were children who live in poverty ( eligible for free school meals) , compared to seventeen per cent of all children who took the national tests.

1.2 Where does it end ? 70% of pupils permanently excluded from school have difficulties in basic literacy skills. 25% of young offenders have reading skills below those of the average seven year old. 60% of the prison population has difficulties in basic literacy skills . Adults with low or very low literacy skills are more likely to be in low paid jobs, unemployed, or dependent upon state benefits and less likely to have had promotion, or work related training. They are also more likely to be in poor housing, and to have poor health. Adults with low literacy levels have double the normal risk of being diagnosed as depressed; in women with very low literacy the risk increases five-fold. There is, as these figures show, a strong connection between early literacy failure and later social exclusion for individual young people and adults. The impact extends beyond individuals: in some communities the percentage of children leaving primary school with no useful literacy skills rises to 40 - 45%, with consequent long-term effects on employment levels, crime and social cohesion.

1.3 Who carries the cost? Education: The costs of failure to make early effective provision for children at risk of severe and persistent literacy difficulties are high: 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, including in-school support and Statements of SEN. Truancy, disaffection and behavioural problems are a hidden cost of literacy failure. Health: The costs of treating the poor health , particularly the poor mental health, that results from failure to prevent persistent literacy difficulties falls on the health service. The criminal justice system: it has been estimated by Leon Feinstein, at the Institute of Education in London, that a 1% increase in basic national qualifications would give a predicted benefit, on property crime alone, between £10million and £320 million. The economy: Savings on the state benefits paid to those who are unemployed or in low paid jobs because of poor literacy skills would pay for early investment in eradicating literacy failure several times over .

2. Why are schools not addressing the needs of this group of children?

2.1 There is evidence that the National Literacy Strategy (NLS), although successful in raising standards for the majority of children, has not been sufficient to reduce the percentage of children reaching the end of primary school with significant literacy difficulties. The percentage of such children has remained largely static nationally over the period since the introduction of the NLS. Once children go on to secondary school, their difficulties have become entrenched and very hard to address through later remediation.

2.2 Intervention that works for these children with severe difficulties is expensive for primary schools to provide. One of the interventions with the strongest evidence-base, Reading Recovery, costs a school approximately £15,000 to £20,000 a year to implement, the cost of 0.5 teacher time. There is substantial evidence to show that schools are not able to make this level of investment without external support - for example, through programmes such as Single Regeneration Budgets, Neighbourhood Renewal or the Children's Fund. Once such funding ceases, they do not normally sustain the programme.

2.3 The Primary National Strategy has endeavoured to work with local education authorities and schools to promote and develop a local strategy for children with significant literacy difficulties, and some funding has been made available to pump-prime LEA infrastructures for training, monitoring and quality-assuring schools' work in this area. There is evidence, however, that because of school funding issues LEAs only feel able to promote and support low-cost, low-intensity interventions which, although effective for some children do not address the needs of the very lowest achievers.

2.4 Earlier investment made by LEAs and schools in less financially stringent times is now being wasted: data show, for example, that in London, where some 600 teachers have had a year-long intensive training in early literacy intervention through Reading Recovery, only 61 are still active in this role.

3. What is needed

3.1 Some targeted, community-based funding schemes have made an investment in early literacy support programmes. Many others have not, however, on the grounds that such provision should be made through general education budgets.

3.2 General education budgets (as we have seen), are not, however, able to support such a level of investment in the short and medium term, even if the investment would be recouped in the long term through reduced costs of SEN provision and provision for excluded pupils.

3.3 There is a strong case to be made therefore for a coordinated strategy across government to tackle the issue of early literacy failure, providing new funding on a spend-to-save basis.

3.4 Such a coordinated strategy would be justified on economic grounds alone , but would also help to meet the aspirations set out in the Green Paper Every Child Matters and impact significantly on social exclusion targets.

3.6 We do have proven tools that lift children out of early literacy failure - and keep them there. In a sample of 600 children with the most severe literacy difficulties who had successfully completed a Reading Recovery programme at age six , for example, half went on to achieve national targets (Level 4+ in Reading) at the end of KS2.

The issue is - why are we not embedding tools like these into our national thinking about how to tackle social disadvantage and social exclusion?