In England, 1 in 6 adults are classed as having very poor literacy skills.

But a lot of sources take this statistic as evidence of a historic problem: as teaching methodologies have advanced and access to both information and education become more prevalent, surely these large clusters of low literacy have become more diffused and less prevalent?

But the data suggests otherwise, and the literacy geography itself gives us some important guidance on literacy support in large schools and academy trusts, especially in these reading need hotspots…

Literacy geography and generational low literacy 

Literacy levels fluctuate across the UK. It’s always been the same, but at the lower end of the graph, it’s consistently been something that education leaders and policymakers find troubling. Some readers will always be stronger than others, but when low literacy levels predominate year after year, in the same families and in the same places, then we face generational low literacy.

Low literacy clusters pose a large problem for both individual futures and for the UK economy. Low literacy itself has a huge impact on people’s earning potential and their standard of living. The cluster format puts additional pressure on the educators and Local Education Authorities who serve those communities, as well as those in schools and trusts tasked with reading intervention strategy: schools have limited resources and budgets, and currently, there are more learners who need support than there is the potential to resource it.

That’s why it’s so important to develop an understanding of the literacy landscape and respond in a way that puts timely support into as many student hands as possible.

What a deep dive into literacy geography can tell school leaders

A closer look at an area’s literacy geography can support school leaders and policymakers in how they address reading needs and combat generational low literacy in their local area and hotspots. It’s always worth knowing how many adults have literacy problems in wider communities and how many school leavers head off into further education and training because it goes some way to directing a literacy action plan: are there isolated elements in your classrooms that need support, or should you be rolling out reading support to whole classes, and tackling reading gaps on a much broader scale?

Better understanding the literacy geography of the area also helps those who manage literacy interventions understand the learners that they’re working with. Demographic analysis is an important part of targeting the readers who need intervention and understanding what strategies and devices will have the most positive effect. 

But why start with adult literacy statistics?

Adult literacy geography levels are an important metric for school leaders as they indicate how many people in a local area have historically been leaving school without the literacy skills that they need to succeed.

These figures don’t account for learning done later in life or the percentage of individuals who move between areas over the course of their lifetime, but they’re still one of the best tools we have for understanding low literacy patterning how support needs to be embedded to overcome the generational slide. This is because if we use them as a baseline and compare newer data on grades, qualifications and participation in higher education, it can give us a picture over time of literacy and learning in these areas… and whether historic low literacy clusters have been resolved since learners left school, or if they’re still an ongoing problem. 

Literacy geography: low reading skills on a local level

81% of English constituencies have at least one ward with poor literacy levels. That’s 436 out of 533 electoral constituencies, which are huge areas and huge numbers when we’re talking about low literacy and account for millions of people.

Data from the OECD in 2019 suggests areas with the lowest literacy in the UK are the North East (where 23% of the adult population is classed as having very poor literacy) and the West Midlands (22% of the adult population classed as having very poor literacy). Statistics from Experian and the National Literacy Trust corroborate and highlight the North West as a low literacy hotspot, with a particular focus on areas like Liverpool Walton, Brightside and Hillsborough, Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton South East and Nottingham North.

At the other end of the curve, consistently high levels of literacy can be seen in areas across the South, including Winchester, Somerset and Hampshire, and a number of London boroughs.

Literacy geography and participation in higher education

There’s a lot of correlation between literacy geography and low participation in higher education. 

As expected, London dominates one side of the peak of learners headed into higher education: Redbridge leads the way with 66% of college and training leavers going to university with Ealing and Enfield not far behind, both on 64%. The other notable set of high-participation areas is clustered in the South West and the internal South East, with participation dropping off as it moves westward into Devonshire and Cornwall. 

Data from the POLAR4 Higher Education Trends Analysis shows a higher percentage of areas in the fifth quintile (large amounts of learners aged 18 starting a higher education course) in the South and in London than anywhere else in the country. Concentrations of areas in the first quintile (very small amounts of learners) are more common in the North and the North West of the country, with the Midlands (both East and West) seeing a predominance of areas in the second quintile (moderately small amounts of learners). 

What does an area’s literacy geography mean for qualifications? 

And there’s an even greater degree of correlation between literacy geography and low qualification status. 

In England, the region with the highest proportion of people with Level 4 and above qualifications was found in those permanently resident in London, at 46.7%; 3.3 million. The second highest proportion was in the South East, at 35.8% or 2.7 million. If we move down the rankings to the very bottom of the list, we can also see that the region with the lowest proportion of people with Level 4 or above qualifications was in the North East (28.6%; 622,000) and the region with the highest proportion of people with no qualifications at all is the West Midlands (around 1 million). 

Londoners also consistently get the best GCSE results, with places like Middlesbrough, South Tyneside, Blackpool and Knowsley trailing behind at the end of the pack. 

The gaps in the map

So if we created an overlay map, both the highest- and the lowest-ranking areas for qualifications and participation in higher education directly correlate with the base map of adult low literacy that we identified in the previous section. 

And although it may not be particularly surprising to an educator, it’s solid evidence of low literacy being an ongoing generational problem, and not a historic one. These learners who aren’t progressing on to university or getting a Level 4 and above qualification didn’t leave school in the 70s and 80s: they’re our most recent high school graduates, and they’re caught in the same low literacy cycle as many of their parents likely have been. 

Like so many other issues, it’s one that the whole country is looking toward educators to sort out. 

Strategy for school leaders and decision-makers

What it means is that there are likely to be far more learners struggling with low literacy in many classrooms than is outwardly evident. 

If around 1 in 5 people has a literacy difference like dyslexia that impacts their reading, then that’s six in a class of thirty who might need support. But if only 26.4% of pupils are able to score a Grade 5 or above at GCSE (like the learners in Knowsley, Liverpool in 2023), that means that there are more learners at all stages who need more reading support, and not all of them are going to have dyslexia. 

It’s hard to break out a literacy gap when you’ve fallen into it. These inequalities demonstrate that when learners are falling behind across swathes of the country, they’re not receiving the support and identification that they need to get back on track. 

Why C-Pen Reader 2 is built for large-scale support needs 

Resourcing human reading support puts significant strain on education budgets. And we know that even before we’ve done the maths above, there currently aren’t enough human reading support professionals to go around in a lot of areas. So even if schools had an unlimited budget (and unlimited classroom space for them to sit in), you’d still be struggling to keep up.

That’s not all, either: human reading support rarely fosters a sense of independence in learners, and makes so many of them feel spotlighted and embarrassed in front of their peers. The last thing that struggling readers need is to associate a further sense of shame with reading, feel like they can’t read without someone sat next to them or feel like their behaviour is under undue scrutiny. 

C-Pen Reader 2 is built different. It’s an award-winning piece of tech designed for aiding readers in large, mixed settings, with customisable support that really allows them to feel like control is back in their hands. Whether they haver dyslexia or just need literacy support, whether they need longer pauses between words, different speaking speeds or even different languages, it really is as easy as scan, listen and understand – just move the tip of the pen across any text to hear the words on the page, and experience multi-modal learning on easy mode!

• Support struggling readers 

• Support those with English as an Additional Language 

• Resource effective reading support on a budget 

• Define words easily with inbuilt dictionary mode 

• Read anywhere, anytime: no need for Wi-Fi! 

• Read for an 8+ hour day on a single charge

• Customise word pause and playback speed 

• Customise language and accent options 

• Scan to file and record voice memos 

C-Pen Reader 2 is also available in a 10-Pen Class Pack, making resourcing and implementing effective reading support across large groups of learners in need is easier and more cost-effective than ever. 

To find out more about what a next-gen reading support can do for the learners in your local area, head on over to our C-Pen Reader 2 Hub at Scanning Pens or request your free educator trial today!