THOUSANDS of 12-year-olds start secondary school unable to read or write properly, say experts.
Ofsted inspectors called for "urgent" action today to help thousands of pupils brush up on their literacy skills.
The education watchdog said standards had risen over the past five years but one in three primary school lessons are still no better than satisfactory.
Boys in particular have shown little improvement and they fall further behind girls in test results as they grow older, Ofsted said.
Ofsted's major study of the state of English teaching over the past five years found that pupils did not know how to improve because the quality of teachers' assessment was "consistently weak".
Miriam Rosen, Ofsted's director of education, said schools must do more to help pupils who start secondary education without reaching the levels of English skills expected of their age group.
Concern
She told the Press Association: "We are concerned, particularly because it will interfere with their ability to access the rest of the curriculum."
Standards in English continued to rise over the five-year period which the report covered, she said.
"However they have yet to reach the Government's targets.
"Although it is a generally encouraging picture there are particular groups of pupils who are not benefiting.
"We are very concerned that all pupils benefit from the increases in the quality of teaching."
National test results show that about one in five 11-year-olds do not reach the standard expected of their age group in English.
The Ofsted report concluded: "There is an urgent need for schools to improve the literacy skills of pupils who enter year seven (the first year of secondary school) with attainment below Level 4 (the standard expected of 11-year-olds)."
Despite significant improvements in teaching between 2000 and 2005, 30% of all primary English lessons are "no better than satisfactory", Ofsted said.
Gap
English is still one of the best taught subjects but boys are not benefiting from the better teaching.
"The gap between girls' and boys' achievement in English is significant and increases as they move through school," the report said.
"This gap is greatest in relation to writing.
"Evidence from the most effective schools suggests that more can be done in many schools to improve the standards of boys' writing."
The report also lamented the decline of reading for pleasure.
"Too few schools have given sufficient time and thought to how to promote pupils' independent reading and there is evidence that many pupils are reading less widely for pleasure than previously.
Struggle
"Many teachers struggle to keep up-to-date with good quality texts for their pupils to read."
Schools Minister Jacqui Smith said she was pleased to see that Ofsted was reporting continued improvement in the quality of English teaching in both primary and secondary schools.
"This progress is reflected by this year's exam results which show that standards of attainment in English continue to rise," she said.
But more must be done and she agreed with Ofsted that schools must do more to target children who are falling behind in the early years of secondary school.
She said: "We will be setting out in the forthcoming White Paper further support to help schools with catch-up programmes to ensure that all pupils make progress."
What can be done to address the UK's literacy problem? Have your say.
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If you find yourself and your children in the unfortunate position of a state school then you have to devote some of your free time to helping them with reading and writing, with my first 2 children when they were at state school my husband and I spent a half day once a fornight with the slow readers as did a large number of the other parents. with class numbers much too high we cannot just blame the teaching staff if we care enough about our childrens future we will try all we can. How about a lot less from the education budget going to shore up the MPs pensions and the war in Iraq then we could employ more teachers
I do dispair (sigh) What has gone wrong?.
I was born , bred and educated in Salford,(Supposedly one of the worst places in the country for education) I left school in the third year ( Yes Illegally ) Because I thought I wasn`t being taught anything.
In retrospect I realised that I had been taught so good I had advanced beyond my years.
This was in the days when the cane was freely distributed to non confomists .. Yes I know..Commas and the like..LOL!
I went on to take the Mensa test and achieved a score of 132..Higher than your local Headmaster.
I agree with the post above but the school system was better then... I had no help from anyone except teachers, So Either the teachers are less educated now or they can`t be bothered...You make your own mind up !!...Todge (42 yo )
Welcome to the ditch diggers, single mothers and unemployed of tomorrow. Not long now before this government allows people to mark their names with a cross
Colin W, offensive and talking garbage at the same time, how do you manage it.
I know single mums that have attained an education to 'degree' level, i also know unemployed doctors.
Education should give you more choice, but its your overall attitude that will determine your employerbility.
Decades ago did we have these reports that were viewed by the masses on the internet ?
The problem was propbably just as bad, if not worse, and with the violent schools kids have to attend today, no wonder truancy is a massive problem.
We could write reams of answers why kids are failing at school, but perhaps the only way to describe the situation these children find themselves in, is that they are products of a Labour and Conservative Governments with a sprinkle of Liberalism.
I am not in the slightest bit surprised at this report. Of course many children can't read at aged 12 when we live in a country which tries to pretend that everyone is equal and has the same abilities, aptitude and learning potential. My daughter, when she took her SATS tests at aged 7 was told she had a reading age of over 12. Why then was she not moved to a higher class? She coasted through her primary school life, continually managing to be top of the class by doing the minimum of work which did not challenge her in the slightest. This is a totally ludicrous system, which countries with high academic achievement such as Switzerland, would be aghast at.
When children are placed in classes where the only determining factor is age, the brightest and the densest are mixed together like the proverbial fillet steak with the cheapest shin beef and churned up together in an attempt to make identical sausages.
But unfortunately, the rules that work for human beings are somewhat different to those which work with dead cattle. Both the academically gifted AND those who struggle to learn are betrayed by this attempt at egalitarianism, ie, the pretence that everyone is the same. But as with all such socialist experiments, it is the weakest which go to the wall first, and the very children the system is trying to help are the ones who are unable to read at age 12 or who leave school with just five or six GCSEs at Grade D or E in subjects such as Drama or Physical Education which no employer or proper University will even look at.
However, I do not entirely blame the schools. They have to do what they are told, working within a rigid, beaurocratic framework to a strict National Curriculum a la 1984. No, the blame lies with the government to a degree but even more so, with the selfish, individualistic culture we live in, where mothers - even ones who could afford to stay at home - go out to work for their own benefit and farm their children out to childminders, grandparents or, nursery schools.
My daughter could read long before she started school, because I was there to teach her. This is where education starts - in the home. But I used to hear complaints from some mothers even about the fact that they were expected to listen to their children reading the school book they brought back at night, saying, 'That should be the teacher's job'!! Of course, having to listen to their child read might interrupt their watching an episode of Eastenders or 'Corrie'!
I find it terribly sad that the most priveleged, delightful and important job in the world - being a mother - has been so degraded within modern society that it is seen as less valuable than going out to work in a travel agents, or cutting peoples' hair.
Until our attitude to the value of being a mother changes, and the government stops paying vast amounts of money to lure mothers back into the workplace, we will continue to be a country with one of the lowest educational achievement rankings in the developed world.
In response to Andy of Wythenshawe (a Socialist perhaps ??). To be honest I dont care a jot if I have offended you or not. The bottom line is that the truth always hurts those it exposes.
It is clear that he and his kind are in favour of "going at the speed of the slowest", in order to support the fallacy that everyone is equal and has the same abilities. This is why the education system and the country is in the state it is in.
The bottom line is there are a large number of people today who are lazy and have the sole intention of sponging off the state for the rest of their lives. Deliberately single mothers and the workshy are but two types of people who have managed to play the system for decades and will continue to do so until people like Andy realise that the intellectually superior should not be held back by the current government's policies of pandering to the stupid and in inept. Single level state education since the 1970s has promoted the "its ok the State will support you" attaitue that prevails today.
Ditches need to be dug, and people who fail in society should be FORCED to do it.
Congrats to realmother! Thats summed up Britian exactly. "Treating everyone as equal when they are not". When I was at school that was called Communism and we all know what happened to that!!!
I think the recent posting about X Factor shows the state of the morons in school today and their grasp of reading and writing.
"iyaaa babiii.....i picked up the pohne every saturday 2 vote 4 u....i luv u so much i wanna meet u xXx LuV yAH xXx "