Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what instructions, guidance, or other advice, they are giving to primary schools about the promotion of silent reading, reading for pleasure, and reading novels, and about teachers reading books to younger classes.

In the next five years, the Government wants children in this country to become the best 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 have made improving the teaching of reading a priority, and reforms to the education system have been designed to help every child become a confident, fluent and enthusiastic reader.

We have 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.

In March 2015 the Department published ‘Reading: Next Steps’ which sets out the Government’s approach to reading and how we will support schools to improve reading standards and promote reading for pleasure. A copy of the document can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reading-supporting-higher-standards-in-schools

The reformed national curriculum for English introduced in 2014 clearly states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. Within the national curriculum, programmes of study for English have been developed to emphasise the importance of reading for pleasure, including reading whole books. Teachers at key stage 1 should make sure that pupils listen to and discuss a wide range of stories, poems, plays and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently to help develop pupils’ pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding. Programmes of study in English at key stage 2 set out that pupils should be able to read silently with good understanding. The programmes of study for English can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study

To inspire thousands more pupils to develop a love of literature and improve their spoken language skills, we are a funding The Reading Agency during 2015-16 to help 200 primary schools set-up book clubs. The book clubs are being established in primary schools where reading attainment is currently low and there are high numbers of disadvantaged pupils. These schools will also enrol their Year 3 pupils with a public library.

In addition, we are funding The Poetry Archive during 2015-16 to produce teaching resources to help primary teachers to introduce poetry recitation to their pupils at an early age.

We are also getting behind the ‘Read On. Get On.’ campaign of corporate, public and charitable sector organisations working together to drive improvement to children’s literacy.