Timely and vital campaign started by Save the Children Read On. Get On has just been launched. It’s a coalition of all sorts of groups and people passionate about passing on the gift of reading to children.
To quote “Read On. Get On. is a national campaign to get all our children reading well by the age of 11. At the moment far too many kids are leaving primary school without this key skill – including 40% of all our poorest children. Our mission is to change this for good so that by 2025 all our children will start secondary school as confident readers. Everyone can do something – just ten minutes reading a day with a child makes a huge difference and helps them fall in love with reading. It will take everyone, parents, grandparents, business, volunteers, teachers, celebrities and politicians, to crack this problem once and for all.” There is more information here including a link to their 2014 report on why and which thousands of children leave school unable to enjoy the pleasure of reading. The report shows that England is one of the most unequal countries when it comes to children’s reading levels, second only to Romania in the EU. The gap between the strongest and weakest readers is equivalent to seven years of schooling. The report calls for a concerted effort from all corners of society. The most comprehensive study of pre-school and primary school-aged children in a generation found disadvantaged children are the worst affected, with four in ten not reading well by the age of 11 – almost double the rate of their better off peers. The report, which uses current data and that from the past decade, also found they are not reading enough outside school, or with their fathers.
This is from one of the key partners in the campaign, the National Literacy Trust, and you can read the blog about the campaign by its Director, Jonathan Douglas, here.
And you can sign the petition calling for concerted action from all parties here.
Please pass it on, and help give the gift of reading to everyone.