Comment: Getting it right from the start is crucial

Education is said to be the wellspring of our health, wealth and happiness. In this light, the shocking picture assembled by the Evening Standard presents a challenge that is more than urgent - not only for schools, but for society as a whole.

We must pull together the best efforts of professionals, parents and policymakers if a real and lasting impact is to be made on securing literacy for children who are falling behind and capable of doing better.

The new research, revealing one in three children do not have a book of their own at home, is a huge concern. We have a massive job on our hands concerning parents. Families need to be made to realise their contribution is vital, both in terms of providing reading material, and reading with children after school. It is one responsibility they cannot afford to shirk.

This isn't to let schools off the hook. The irony is that our schools are far better placed now than ever before in knowing how to teach reading. The policy push for high-quality, systematic phonic work, in which children sound out words - "synthetic phonics", as it is known - is one thing the Coalition and the last government are agreed upon.

Most primary schools have raised their game, but we have not yet reached the tipping point where high-quality teaching of phonics is the norm. And while research and professional practice point to phonics being essential, no one believes it is sufficient of itself.

We have certainly made progress since Edwardian times, but this is 2011, not 1911, and we ought to be doing better. One tried and tested way of getting struggling pupils to read is one-on-one support.

Where teachers cannot provide this, it is available in many primaries via volunteers brought in by charitable groups such as Volunteer Reading Help. We need to help children develop a love of and confidence in reading, so it becomes a habit that will last a lifetime.

All of which places a huge responsibility on primary schools. No primary worth its salt - or an Ofsted judgment of satisfactory, let alone outstanding - deserves to be so rated if it fails to meet children's literacy potential.

The evidence shows that getting it right from the start is crucial if reading failure is not to become entrenched, and cause both child and society much bigger problems down the line.