To ask the Minister of Education what action his Department is taking to ensure that all children, regardless of background, achieve a good standard of literacy by eleven.

My priorities for education are focused on raising standards and tackling the impact of disadvantage. My policies reflect these priorities. Count, Read: Succeed, the literacy and numeracy strategy, aims to raise attainment levels in both literacy and numeracy and narrow the gap in educational outcomes. The strategy sets out the central role of teachers, supported by parents and school leaders, in their work to raise standards.

We are moving in the right direction. In the PIRLS and TIMSS studies published in December 2012 we were the highest ranking English speaking region in the world in both reading and numeracy - 5th out of 45 countries surveyed in reading and 6th out of 50 countries surveyed in mathematics.

The Learning to Learn framework sets early years education and learning services within my overall approach, where the importance of delivering high quality education services for children before and in the first years of compulsory education is recognised. Evidence shows that early years education provision makes a distinctive contribution to helping achieve the wider aims of improving attainment and reducing underachievement, especially in literacy and numeracy.

However, we still have too many young people who are not at their expected level in literacy at the end of their primary schooling and schools require additional support to address this underachievement particularly amongst socially disadvantaged pupils. I am therefore continuing to provide funding for a range of additional interventions which focus on those factors which international evidence and best practice tells us will improve outcomes.

These include the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Literacy Project run by Stranmillis and St Mary’s University Colleges. This offers continuing professional development for teachers to develop their capacity to teach reading, spelling and independent writing skills to children of primary age with special educational needs.

The Delivering Social Change programme to improve literacy and numeracy is providing an additional teaching resource to 151 primary schools, a community education initiatives programme across all sectors which aims to foster links between schools and their local communities and a Literacy and Numeracy CPD for teachers of English and maths at Key Stages 2 and 3 focusing on high quality teaching and transition from primary to post primary.

The Education Works advertising campaign is aimed at informing and reminding parents of the importance and value of becoming more involved in their child’s education for example by reading with their children.

Save the Children’s recently published report ‘Read on. Get on’ sets a target of all children reading well at the age of 11 by 2025, and it is interesting to note that the key areas for action are already part of my strategic approach to raising literacy standards.