Youngsters struggling with literacy

Published: Tuesday, 12 August 2008, 4:01PM

Almost one in three 14-year-olds are failing to reach the standards expected of their age group in reading, Sats results have shown.

And boys are faring worse than girls when it comes to literacy, according to the tests taken by around 600,000 teenagers in England.

While writing levels improved 3 per cent on last year, more than a quarter (27 per cent) of pupils fell short of Level 5 - the standard expected of them in English - with figures down 1 per cent on 2007.

It is a reversal of results at primary school level, where the proportion of schoolchildren reaching the expected standard in reading is higher than in writing.

In reading, 69 per cent got the required standard, down 2 per cent on a year before, while 77 per cent reached Level 5 in writing, up 3 per cent on last year.

For mathematics, 77 per cent attained the desired level, a gain of 1 per cent, but in science, just 71 per cent reached this level, down 2 per cent.

Schools minister Jim Knight said: "At Level 4 in reading a pupil can read a tabloid newspaper and even read between the lines written in a tabloid newspaper and see what the moral message is, but to step up to Level 5 is what some appear to be struggling to do.

"They need to be able to understand historical and literary traditions."

He added: "The difference in the levels is that at Level 5 there is a need to understand such things as historical context. It does mean that it's quite a hard step up for quite a lot of pupils.

"It means engaging with classical or other different sorts of language that they don't use at home, with friends or in school."

Mr Knight said to progress to the level means a child has to be actively interested in reading, and reading different types of books.

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