To ask the Minister of Education how his Department is supporting children from areas of greater deprivation and lower socio-economic backgrounds to ensure that they can read well when they leave primary education.

‘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.

Effective intervention must be available to pupils in their early years, when they develop the foundations for literacy. This is reflected in both ‘Count, Read: Succeed’ and in the Learning to Learn framework.

Early years education in the form of Sure Start and the Pre-School Education Programme offer essential age and stage appropriate services which contribute directly to children achieving their full potential. The importance of providing effective speech and language support from an early age is one of the six core elements of the Sure Start programme and the Department provides specific funding within the programme to support delivery of speech and language services. Provision of speech and language support is also an essential component of the Sure Start Developmental Programme for 2-3 year olds.

The Extended Schools programme provides additional resources to over 500 schools to support the drive to maximize learning and achievement for those children and young people most in need or at risk of low educational achievement. Extended Services funding is available to eligible non-statutory pre-school education settings and targets those children in the most deprived areas and is aimed at helping the social, emotional, communication and language skills of young children.

In primary schools, the Delivering Social Change (DSC) Literacy and Numeracy Signature Programme provided an additional teaching resource to 151 primary schools in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 academic years and a Legacy Programme will ensure that the best practice and learning developed through the Programme can be disseminated across all schools. Support for literacy provision was also the focus the SEN Literacy Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Project which I funded from 2012/13 to 2014/15 and the current Literacy and Numeracy Key Stage 2/3 CPD project.

Parents also have an important role to play in their child’s early education; this is a focus of my Education Works campaign. In addition, as part of the Delivering Social Change agenda, the Department has been working with the DHSSPS on the Early Intervention Transformation Programme that seeks to equip, support and empower parents to provide their children with the best start in life.