Ruth Miskin is the consultant featured in the documentary Last Chance Kids, whose reading programme was used by Monteagle Primary School to improve the reading abilities of the pupils.

She has many years experience as a teacher, head teacher, teacher trainer and consultant in Synthetic Phonics, working at schools throughout the UK and with children from all backgrounds. She believes that experience means she is in a unique position to tell the government what needs to be done next so that all children learn to read…

Insist that every child is taught to read until they can – using a well tried and tested phonic programme – whatever their age. This can be achieved in one hour a day.

At the moment children who cannot read sit through literacy lessons for an hour a day on characterisation, plot, setting and author's craft.

Devise a test of basic functional literacy that 100% children will master. Ensure this is fundamentally a phonics based test. Some will pass this when they are six years old and others later.

At the moment we aim for 85% of 11 year olds to pass an English test. This is a test of comprehension and literary criticism.

Some fail because they can't read; others because they don't understand the text. The government gives booster classes to children who can read but don't understand – not the ones who can't read.

Ensure that all teachers and assistants in a given school are trained thoroughly on one phonic system that can be taught to a child of any age learning to read.

At the moment schools use countless 'intervention' programmes to back up flawed or poorly implemented initial reading programmes.

Many of these government recommended intervention programmes teach 'look and say' and picture guessing. So the neediest schools with the neediest children don't get the best consistent phonic teaching.

Understand that shifting a whole school culture is no quick fix. It's not just the children learning in the first year it's the staff too. Give the school two full years to get every child functionally literate and then four years later children will get much higher SATs at 11 years old.

At the moment schools are urged to go with a quick fix approach by helping the 'nearly theres' and not the children who are at the bottom of the pile. Schools have to do this year after year and do not have space or time to embed a full reading programme thoroughly.

Get OFSTED to make 100% literacy their priority. Get inspectors to focus on the lowest 10% of readers.

At the moment schools can get good OFSTED reports even when 10-15% cannot read well.

Author: Ruth Miskin

Ruth Miskin – What the Government Should Do | The Rose Review | Improving Literacy: The Government's Strategy | Leitch Review of Skills | Getting the Basics Right | The Rowntree Report (June 2007) | The Long Term Costs

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