The Vision Project

WORDS MATTER
THE ROLE OF LITERACY IN COMBATTING SOCIAL EXCLUSION
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN DOUGLAS
Jonathan is the Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust, an independent charity working with
schools and communities to give disadvantaged children the literacy skills to succeed in life.
Children who start school without the
literacy, language and communication
skills they need to learn and flourish
will have their futures cut short before
they’ve even started. As children they
won’t be able to succeed at school, as
young adults they will be locked out
of the job market, and as parents they
won’t be able to support their own child’s
learning – putting social inclusion, and
the chance to live in a fairer society, out
of reach for generations of children...
To achieve social inclusion, children, young people
and adults must have the literacy skills they need
to be able to make sense of the world around
them and their place in it. Yet 7.1 million adults in
England don’t have the literacy skills they need to
read a newspaper, understand a utility bill, make
sense of the instructions on their medicine, fill out
a job application form or navigate the internet.
Lacking vital literacy skills puts people at extreme
risk of social exclusion. Indeed, extensive research
shows that people with poor literacy skills are
significantly more likely to experience poverty, live
in poor quality housing, be unemployed, become a
perpetrator or victim of crime, have poor physical
and mental health, and even lead shorter lives.
Research also shows that the majority of literacy
problems experienced in adulthood can be traced
back to the early years. Children who have poor
language skills at the age of five are six times
more likely to fail to reach the expected standard
in English at age 11, three times more likely to
experience mental health problems as adults, and
twice as likely to be unemployed aged 34.
The scale of the challenge we are facing is
immense. Last year in England, more than 180,000
five-year-olds started primary school without the
language, literacy and communication skills they
need to learn, make friends and flourish.
This picture doesn’t improve as children grow
up – in fact, it gets worse – with a quarter (25%)
of 11-year-olds leaving primary school last year
unable to read well and a third (36%) of 16-yearolds
failing to get a good grade in GCSE English
language.
For children from the poorest backgrounds, this
challenge is even more acute. We know that
children and young people from the poorest
backgrounds are most at risk of falling behind
when it comes to developing the literacy skills they
need to succeed in life. In fact, the link between
poverty, educational attainment and basic skills is
stronger in England than in any other developed
country.
To tackle the UK’s literacy challenge and give every
child the literacy skills they need to reach their
potential, regardless of their background, we must
target our work in the places where we can make
the biggest difference to children’s lives.
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THE VISION PROJECT