Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to tackle the fall in the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard in reading at Key Stage 2.

The Government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards and ensuring all children can read fluently and with understanding.

Ofsted’s inspection framework, published in May 2019, puts a greater focus on how well schools are teaching their pupils to read: inspectors listen to children reading aloud, watch phonics classes and check how schools help weaker readers to improve.

In addition, the Department have launched a £26.3 million English Hubs Programme. The Department has appointed 34 primary schools across England as English Hubs, who are taking a leading role in supporting nearly 3000 schools to improve their teaching of reading through systematic synthetic phonics, early language development, and reading for pleasure.

This network of schools will work to increase reading standards across the country and to improve educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged children, particularly in underperforming schools.