Literacy matters because when literacy permeates the whole curriculum those who lack literacy skills are excluded and then find other, often anti-social ways, to fill their time.

I became very aware of how important it is to get the necessary literacy skills at the right time when my daughter had great difficulty learning to read.  Despite her best efforts, she fell more and more behind. Fortunately, before the gap between her and her peers got too big, we spent a year in the USA, in a school district where they had a reading recovery scheme for children at Mairi’s stage with reading problems.

Every day for a term she was picked up in a yellow school bus and taken to an intensive reading programme. Her problem was analysed and solved, and she emerged an avid reader with a book always to hand – a habit that she has retained ever since.

And what a difference it made to her subsequent school career! Seeing is believing, and from then on I became passionate about the need to help all youngsters who, for whatever reason, struggle to learn to read. It’s not rocket science – some children need more time and support than others.

Over the years I became an enthusiastic advocate and supporter of literacy programmes such as the early years initiative in the 1990s, West Dunbartonshire’s ongoing programme and the individual school whose headteacher made it his purpose to ensure that no child left his school unable to read. I consequently had no hesitation in joining the Literacy Commission.

It was very instructive to work alongside a whole range of experts who persuaded me that literacy was about more than basic reading; it was also about the higher order skills like critical analysis. When we issued our report we hoped it would make a difference and it is enormously satisfying to find literacy given official prominence in the Government’s Literacy Action Plan. Like the Literacy Commission, it takes the view that literacy is a journey. It starts in the earliest years, developing children’s language capacity; it moves through good school programmes to ensure children acquire basic reading skills and continues on to ensure children develop the necessary higher skills.

Now we have a plan for action, we need the action to implement the plan because with something like 20% currently failing to acquire the skills they need, it would make an amazing difference if that figure could be brought down – and let’s not be too ambitious – by half.

Judith Gillespie, Chair, Literacy Commission