IT has been calculated that one in five children leaving primary school have such poor standards of speaking, reading and writing the English language that they are unable to progress with secondary education.

In Thurrock the ratio is worse: one in four cannot cope adequately with secondary education.

There are many factors that have been judged to cause this problem.

The government recently have recommended that schools look again at the phonic method where sounds are recognised by the letters and groups of letters, the "c" "a" "t" system.

This new method of teaching has been labelled as "Letters and Sounds" in a direction sent to schools recently.

One man desperate to drive up standards is borough councillor Mike Revell.

Though he recently stood down from a Cabinet position in the council for personal reasons, as portfolio holder for education, he was at the forefront to drive local standards upwards.

He said: "Whatever the method used there is a particular problem in Thurrock with white boys, who, in some areas of the borough perform well below the national average.

"It is apparent that in many of these cases the parents also lack an ability to handle their language with confidence.

"Parents with poor reading skills are often quite adept at hiding this fact and teachers report that frequently it is the poor response, or often complete lack of response, to notes taken home from school that has brought to light the parent's problem.

"There are courses to help adult literacy in our colleges but in addition, to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit to an inability to read, joint courses with mother and child have been successfully introduced in many of our primary schools.

"These parents are hard to reach but hopefully the word will go out that help is at hand. It is understood by teachers that such parents will have had a very negative experience of school and may well be reluctant to engage with learning again.

"However any appeals for help will be very tactfully treated."

"This year has been designated the "National Year of Reading" and in conjunction Thurrock is running its own "Year of Reading" working in tandem with the national scheme.

The message has been taken up wholeheartedly by the new portfolio holder for children's services, councillor Sue MacPherson.

She said: "It is vitally important that children get a good start to enable them to appreciate potential as they get older.

"If they haven't got the basic skills then children will always struggle with their learning as they progress.

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As a prelude to the programme that is to be launched for the year, councillor Mike Revell was at Tilbury Manor Junior School reading stories from his grand children's' books.

He said: "The clear favourite was the book on dinosaurs. I was impressed by the reading standards and the fact that the children were more familiar with the names of the different animals than I was including the pronunciations."