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When a teacher asked his pupils to bring in a book from home, one nine-year-old brought the Argos catalogue, saying: 'It's the only one we've got.'
On Day One of our exposé of London's illiteracy crisis, we highlight the children struggling to learn to read in families where they get no help. The inspirational girl interviewed on this page had to overcome huge obstacles . Over the next four days we will be talking to teachers, experts and employers and asking what we can do to tackle a problem that shames this great city.
Seven-year-old Aurella is a picture of concentration. Eyes glued to the television, she manipulates the controls of her Xbox 360, immersed in her favourite Mini Ninjas game.
All around, her room is full of soft toys and games bought by her hardworking mother Anna Brzezowska. But the one item you'd expect to find is absent. There are no books.
Across the hall of their small, neat flat in Ealing, her mother's bedroom has a widescreen TV and piles of DVDs but again, no books, not even a magazine.
Aurella is a captivating young girl, but no amount of charm has been able to persuade her mother to take her to the library. "We pass the library on the bus," she says, "and I always ask, 'Mum, can we go?' but mum says, "Maybe tomorrow, Aurella."
At an age when children's literacy takes off, and they are expected to read for 20 minutes a day at home to keep up with classmates, Aurella has nothing to read and nobody at home to read to. It's hardly surprising her ability lagged three years behind that of her peers.
Her plight is alarmingly common. New research, obtained exclusively by the Standard, reveals that one in three children does not have a book of their own at home. By contrast, a separate survey shows 85 per cent of London children own a computer games console.
Researcher Christina Clark surveyed 18,000 pupils in 111 British schools. She found that children with no books had lower levels of attainment, negative attitudes to reading, and read "less frequently". They were two-and-a-half times more likely to fall below the expected reading level for their age. The figures will be released next month by the National Literacy Trust.
The full facts are stark: one in four children leaves the capital's state primaries unable to read properly. Five per cent can hardly read at all. In inner-city schools 40 per cent leave primary school with the reading age of a six to nine-year-old, says the Centre for Policy Studies.
In London, the home of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare's Globe, and T S Eliot, schools are, in 2011, churning out illiterate pupils at unacceptably high rates.
This is a betrayal of our children, but it is a tragedy for society, too. The conveyor belt from illiteracy to exclusion to unemployment and, all too often, criminality, is well documented. A recent Prison Reform Trust study found 48 per cent of inmates have the reading age of a seven-year-old or younger.
One million adult Londoners - one in six - are functionally illiterate. Evidence shows they are more likely to end up on state benefits, in overcrowded housing, divorced, in poor health and in prison.
The Standard has spoken to teachers across the city. One told of a nine-year-old boy asked to bring a book from home to share with his class. He brought the Argos catalogue, saying: "It's the only book my family have."
Former Ofsted director Sir Jim Rose, author of several reports on literacy, says: "We are in serious trouble. We have entered the era of the Argos catalogue family, those with no books of their own at home. We need to do something urgently. It is a responsibility we cannot afford to shirk."
The Standard is publishing a week of articles exposing London's literacy crisis. Aurella's story is a wake-up call - but also offers hope that we can turn illiterate children into eager readers.
When she started at Viking primary in Northolt in 2009, Aurella joined a school where, for 80 per cent of pupils, English is not their first language. She spoke Polish at home and arrived at the school gates without a word of English: "When I started I didn't even know how to ask for toilet, or lunch. Children were asking me things but I couldn't understand. I just shook my head.
"I felt terrible and told mum I wanted [to go] back to Poland. The children helped me.
They taught me "hello", "I like you", "do you want to play?" I took eight days to make my first friend." Aurella learned to fit in socially, but her academic progress was slow.
Viking headteacher Sue Townson recalls her as "an anxious, nervous child" whose reading was "two to three years behind her peers. Understandably she was very quiet and got easily distressed. Reading affects everything: if you can't read, your ability to do maths and science is limited because you can't grasp the problem. And it has a huge impact on a child's confidence and self-esteem."
Aurella's difficulty was compounded by having nobody to read with at home. Single mother Anna, 27, who came to London when Aurella was three, can barely read English. According to the National Literacy Trust, lack of help at home is widespread, with 80 per cent of parents "struggling to find the opportunity to read with their children".
Immigration is often used as an excuse for low literacy levels, but heads such as Sir Michael Wilshaw, of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, have shown that with proper support, migrant pupils can make outstanding progress. Ms Townson says one way of helping children is to help parents: "We run a course for illiterate parents called Keeping Up With The Children." A dozen attend classes, but Aurella's mother is not one of them.
"I have no time because I work long hours as cleaner and before that three years on shopfloor at Asda," says Anna. "I earn £700 a month, I pay rent, I take no government handouts. I was first Polish person to work at Asda Wembley Park store and I learned English from people there. I came to London after Aurella's father left me - to make good future for Aurella.
"When we arrive, Aurella speak no English same like me, but now she is my teacher. When I fill out council forms, I ask Aurella. Sometimes I get post and call my friend because I don't understand some word and Aurella comes running and shouts, "Mum, don't call friend, I know that word!"
But with Aurella lacking support at home, and her teacher unable, in a class of 30, to give her the attention she needed, Ms Townson drafted in help. She allocated Aurella a worker from Volunteer Reading Help, a charity that trains adults to provide one-on-one support in schools.
Twice a week for the last nine months, Aurella has been taken out of class to read for half an hour with Zainab Reddy, a mother of three.
I watch as she sits at a low table in the library with Mrs Reddy. "The book we are reading is called Animal Tales," Aurella says. "It's like a play. I choose to be fox and Mrs Reddy is crow. "Animal Tales," she begins proudly. "This fox who is cunning and..." She gets stuck on "clever", reading it as "creven", then "cleever". She tries to break up the word phonetically.
"Have you heard of the word clever?" asks Mrs Reddy. "Oh yes!" says Aurella excitedly, "clever!" She gallops on.
Mrs Reddy, one of three volunteers at the school, describes how Aurella has risen up the school's colour-coded reading scheme from pink ("picture books") to red ("four words per page"), to yellow and now blue, adding: "She is an amazing and determined child."
Ms Townson agrees: "Aurella is catching up and is only a year behind her peers now. She is a bright girl, her confidence has come on in leaps and bounds."
Anna is proud of her daughter: "Aurella used to be only interested in computer games but since she start with Mrs Reddy, she loves reading." When I ask why there are no English books at home, she looks shamefaced. "Maybe I take her to library," she says.
Aurella jumps up, smiling and laughing. She takes a book from her bag and starts to read aloud. Several pages in, she stops and says: "My mum can't read this. I taught my mum to say 'red' and 'orange' because she don't know those words. When I started, I thought reading was hard. But Mrs Reddy has helped me. Now I'm a great reader."
Aurella may have found her catcher in the rye. But with 72,000 British children arriving at high school every year unable to read to the expected level, and the shocking rise of the Argos catalogue family, there is urgent work to be done.
Reader views (14)
The thing is, I don't think it's just that a bad attitude to reading causes a lack of ability to read, I think it also works the other way around. Not everyone finds it easy to learn to read and they find it stressful, which causes the bad attitude and resistance to it. People diss that which they cannot do. Which of course means that their reading doesn't improve and it goes in a cycle.
The way to get children reading is not to stress to them its importance. That makes reading something they HAVE to do whether they want to or not, a chore, and children just want to have fun. The parents need to realise its importance, but with the children we need the help of the media and marketing people to glamorise reading the same way they glamorise toys and video games and movies. Make children WANT to read. If they want to be able to read then they will willingly go out and learn. And of course, as others have said, supportive parents certainly help, not least because parents who read are creating an image that their children will want to imitate.
- Liz, London, England, 04/06/2011 00:25
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Bookstart give fee books to every child in England at their health checks. There are 3 packs: babies, toddles and pre-school. Then on book day children are given a voucher that they can exchange for a book at leading supermarkets, so there is no failing on the part of the powers that be to provide children with the required materials. This is entirely down to the attitude of the parents. My 6 year old struggles with reading because schools only give children 15 mins a week on reading at that age - clearly not enough
- Jane Bewick, London, 01/06/2011 11:32
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I agree with other contributors that changes in society and access to technology have meant many children lack homes where books and reading are considered priorities. This means what happens in schools is even more important. Schools need to enthuse children about books and reading. International studies such as the PIRLS report (2006) have shown that children in England have poor attitudes to reading compared to other comparable countries and poor attitudes lead to poor performance. CLPE's Power of Reading project is making a significant difference to children's attitudes to books and reading in schools in London and across the country and also to their achievement. Introducing children to wonderful books and exploring them in exciting ways (rather than more Government reading intervention projects) is the way to create life long readers.
- Sue M Senior Adviser Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, London, 01/06/2011 10:16
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The same uncaring and disconnected politicians, both local and national, who are closing libraries are the same people who whinge and make political capital out out children's falling literacy standards.
- NeilM, Cheltenham, 01/06/2011 09:29
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I work for a New Zealand based charity called Duffy Books in Homes. It was founded by author Alan Duff over 15 years ago and to date we have given away almost eight million books to children from low-income homes.
Research has shown that children in the programme improve their reading levels by as much as 35% in their first year of participation.
We don't use a complicated teaching methodology - we simply give children brochures three times a year and they can choose from books that their families could either not afford or would never consider prioritising. At the end of the school term they receive their brand new books from a well-known role model and they are theirs to keep.
The New Zealand programme has already inspired similar programmes in Australia and the USA and in New Zealand alone reaches over 100,000 children every year.
I have no idea if such a programme exists in the UK but perhaps there is room for it?
What we have found is incredibly simple - choice and ownership motivate children to read.
- Philip, Auckland, New Zealand, 01/06/2011 02:45
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This is so sad, but quite frankly more a result of failing parents than failing schools. With SO many resources offered to parents these days (Book Start, Libraries, World Book Day etc), there is simply no excuse for this and it is pure laziness in parenting.
It is not someone else's job to teach children, it is the job of the parents. Schools/Teachers can assist in this but not be solely responsible. My Grandmother was not educated and couldn't speak English but she still found time to take us to the library and bought us books - even if she couldn't read them to us herself. Eventually she started taking some books herself and learnt how to read basic English.
I am so fed up and frustrated by these stories. The amount on offer to everyone these days is far greater than we had when we were growing up, but the level of educational divide continues to grow. In the majority of cases this divide is assisted by parents who see no value in education, despite Gvmt efforts.
And once again the only ones who truly suffer are the children!
- SMB, London, UK, 31/05/2011 16:39
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A colleague tells me about two teenagers on work experience who were asked to file invoices. They had no idea about the sequence of the alphabet - this had to be written out for them. Experts on the QWERTY key board though as one hand was glued to their phone texting!
- Mona Lott, Lon, 31/05/2011 15:29
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PeterR, you have to be a decent parent willing to spend some time on your child instead of yourself. And you yourself have to know how to read!
Neglectful or abusive parents have always been with us. But today, the victims of "trendy" teaching methods of decades past, who left school illiterate or not far short thereof, with no love of reading or appreciation of its importance, are having their own children, who they can't or won't teach to read.
On top of which our councils are closing our neighbourhood libraries, closing the last escape route for these children.
- Nigel, London, 31/05/2011 15:28
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Joe Blow, you're absolutely right! It's the politicians and the wet-behind-the ears "educational experts" who all think they know better than the rest of us. At school in Glasgow, I was drilled in the three R's. Fifty plus years later, I still read voraciously, can spell properly, write clearly and can do mathematical sums in my head without any problem. We were taught properly in those days. I despair at the dreadful standards in schools now and the children have been shamefully betrayed by adults who should know a lot better than they do.
The expression "As you sow, so shall you reap" has never rung truer.
- Baron von Richtofen, Biggin Hill, 31/05/2011 15:06
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When I was a child my family didn't have any books in the house, nor do I remember them in other houses. I still learned to read. This was at school where they knew how to teach in those days. They are missing the point it is the teaching system which is at fault here. The social engineering of the past 30 years or so has destroyed our education system. It used to be the envy of the world now it is a shambles. I hope the new socialists are proud of themselves.
- Joe Blow, Wales, 31/05/2011 14:29
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Never mind they are shutting all the libraries anyway.
I expect India will donate us some of the books we have paid for over there to educate their kids.
- kedge, marlboro wilts, 31/05/2011 13:42
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The increasing number of disinterested chav parents doesn't help...
- David, London, UK, 31/05/2011 13:37
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This story is barely believable. Personally, reading is such a pleasure and I wonder what qualifications one needs to help a child to read.
- PeterR, London, 31/05/2011 13:14
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"Aurella joined a school where, for 80 per cent of pupils, English is not their first language."
Shouldn't we be asking questions about this statistic as well?
Why, in some areas of London, are 80% of school children immigrants or the children of immigrants?
If that doesn't indicate that immigration has been out of control then I don't know what does!
- Ben, London, 31/05/2011 13:13
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