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Reading Recovery Programme

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. We both illustrated that there is a big gap in articulation levels and that is probably set very early by what children hear from their parents. I am reminded of my A-level history lessons on the counter-reformation and Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who said, ““If you give me a child until the age of seven he will have my standards for life thereafter.”” That applies in so many ways. We are debating the reading recovery programme—in some parts of the country it is called ““Every Child a Reader””. We know from the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) that the levels of support that the programme can achieve are impressive. At key stage 1, two thirds of children who took part in the programme achieved the expected level and, even without further support, half achieved the expected level by the time they got to key stage 2. Going back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke)—she has now left the Chamber—said during an intervention, if that support were maintained throughout education, those percentages and fractions would, I am sure, be much higher. Literacy is about not only reading skills, but language and communication. In a modern economy we need to turn out people who can go into the workplace at 16 or 18 to sell, to persuade, to negotiate and to achieve what is best for them and their employers. Alarming trends are set early in life for whether they are likely to leave school with those educational skills. The 2004-05 annual report of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on English says that"““at key stages 1-3 there is still little evidence that speaking and listening is being taught explicitly or securely assessed””." I am a member of the Select Committee on Education and Skills and the hon. Member for Nottingham, North quoted from its report during the previous Parliament: ““Teaching Children to Read””. Another extract says that"““children need to talk and to experience a rich diet of spoken language, in order to think and learn. Reading, writing and number may be the acknowledged curriculum ‘basics’, but talk is ‘arguably the true foundation of learning’””." Partly for those reasons and partly because of evidence that we picked up elsewhere—this is the one party point I shall make—the Liberal Democrats have set up the 4Rs commission to examine not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but the skill of articulation. We have tried to take politics out of that commission by ensuring that it is headed by a respected educationalist, Bethan Marshall, and consists of primary school teachers and people who work with children in other fields, including children’s entertainment and TV. My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion mentioned the role of other parts of government, such as local government and libraries. As a child, I discovered the joy of reading partly from going to my local library back in south Wales. I was lucky to have home support. I read Enid Blyton books and remember ““The Magic Faraway Tree”” and the ““The Enchanted Wood””, as, I am sure, do many of us. One sector that has not been spoken about is the voluntary sector and its role. In my constituency recently I met a group called Volunteer Reading Help, a charity that has existed in Bristol since the 1970s. It now provides support in more than 1,000 schools throughout the country. It goes into schools and works, typically, with groups of four children twice a week for 30 minutes to give them the reading support that they need. The emphasis in that support is not on achieving any key stage or curriculum requirements; it is all about the fun of reading. It teaches reading by encouraging children to read books that they enjoy and to take part in games. Its results have been impressive. There is also a role for possessions. I am not a father, but I am a godfather and I know that my godchildren love being given books. The bag of books that my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion mentioned is obviously playing a role, but there are many other ways open to the Government and voluntary sector. I was given an annual book at Sunday school and I still have them all at home. Just giving a child a book that belongs to them and they can hold on to will encourage them to take up the joy of reading. There is a role for the Government, a role for the profession, a role for parents and a role for volunteers to start children on the voyage of discovery that the joy of reading can lead them to.