A VERY disturbing report was published recently which highlighted the growing gap in reading skills between children in Wales and those elsewhere in the UK.
The What Kids Are Reading report studied a million children in the UK including 20,000 in Wales.
It found that children in Wales lagged behind those in all of the other UK countries. In Year One of primary, Welsh students are reading books on average a year older than their chronological age while children in the three other nations are two years ahead.
The report says that the problem continues right through primary school with children reading books with a lower level of difficulty than children elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Even in secondary school, Welsh children have lower reading and comprehension levels than their counterparts.
This is what you get when you spend years underfunding Welsh education as this Labour Government has done. Each child in Wales has £1,000 a year less spent on them than those in the other UK nations. The National Association of Headteachers published a damning report last November that lays the blame squarely on underfunding. It says that Labour cuts to education mean schools are starved of resources.
You only get one chance to have a decent education and Labour is squandering the life chances of our children.
