Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve levels of primary school literacy in England (a) generally and (b) among the poorest socio-economic groups.

The government is committed to raising standards of literacy in schools so that every child masters the basics of reading and writing at a young age. Our primary national curriculum for English has been designed with the aim that all children leave primary school fully literate and ready to succeed at secondary school.

This government has placed phonics at the heart of the early teaching of reading.The result from this year’s phonics screening check show that, three years on from its introduction, 120,000 more six-year-olds are now on track to become excellent readers.

This year’s figures show that 99 per cent of pupils who reach or exceed the pass mark in the phonics check go on to achieve at least the expected standard in Key Stage 1 reading, underlining the importance of developing the ability to decode words effectively at an early age. The proportion of six-year-olds achieving the expected standard has risen by 19 percentage points to 77 per cent since 2012.

Over the next five years, we have set ourselves an ambitious challenge to make children in this country the most proficient readers in Europe. We are determined to make sure that every child, no matter where they live or what their background, learns to read well and read widely. We are working with David Walliams to support our mission to tackle child illiteracy and we are funding the Reading Agency to set up 200 new book clubs in schools.

The government is determined that every child receives an education which allows them to achieve to their potential. This is why we introduced the pupil premium in 2011, giving schools extra funding to focus on their disadvantaged pupils. During the last Parliament, the government provided over £6 billion of additional funding to schools through the pupil premium. We are continuing to tackle educational inequality and we have committed to providing a further £2.5 billion of pupil premium this year alone.

The result of the government’s reforms is that disadvantaged pupils are catching up with their peers at both primary and secondary level.