Parents, not schools, are the key to improving children’s literacy, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has said.

“Reading for pleasure helps children with their literacy skills and sparks their imagination and creativity,” he said at the start of a national drive to encourage families to read together. “I cannot imagine a life without getting pleasure from books.” He added that inspiring children to read was one of the greatest gifts a parent could give their child.

Mr Johnson, who was raised in a single-parent household in Notting Hill, West London, added that no child should be allowed to grow up in a household without books, as he did.

Among the first books he read at primary school were Shane by Jack Schaefer, The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

These inspired the young Johnson to see himself as a novelist. After his mother died when he was 12, he bought a copy of The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and taught himself to write with his left hand, believing that being ambidextrous would be a huge advantage for an author.

“After my Mum died, we went to stay with a wonderful family called the Coxes, who had a cabinet full of books. It was absolutely wonderful,” Mr Johnson said. When he was 15 he began writing detective stories and built up an impressive collection of rejection slips from publishers. His only success was the publication of a poem when he was 18. By then his ambitions had turned to pop stardom.

He added that he was a fan of Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s Book Club on Channel 4, dismissing critics of the show as snobs. He said that it had become a fearsomely effective engine for selling books.

Research indicates that children who cannot read and write to the expected level by the end of primary school have only a one-in-five chance of achieving five good GCSEs.

Mr Johnson said that children should be allowed to read comics if they preferred them to serious literature. He added that teachers should consider giving boys different set texts from girls, as they often had completely different interests.

He has launched a Family Engagement toolkit to help schools to encourage parents to read with their children. Schools will also be encouraged to set aside parents’ reading rooms or areas in their libraries, and will be given advice about how to teach parents reading games they can play with their children.

Mr Johnson and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, have already promised extra support for six-year-olds struggling with reading by extending the Every Child a Reader one-to-one tuition scheme from 2,500 children a year to 30,000.

Reading tips

- Let your child see your finger following the text

- Let the child join in where possible

- Talk – and listen – to your child, even when the question is one you have heard a million times

- Help your child to hold the pencil properly. Sit next to them when you write, not opposite

- If they are left-handed and you are not, let them see you write with your left hand – otherwise they can't copy what you do

- Praise your child at every opportunity. The more they feel successful, the more they will want to practise – and the better they will get

- Don’t transfer any worries on to your child. Be relaxed. Have fun!

- Don’t work when one of you is tired, hungry or bored

Source: Childliteracy.com

Timeless tales

- Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne

- The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl

- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis

- The BFG Roald Dahl

- The Twits Roald Dahl

- Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

- Matilda Roald Dahl

- The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien

- Treasure Island R. L. Stevenson

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