Poorest children trail richer classmates in language skills

Britain's poorest children are already almost a year behind their richer classmates in their language skills by the time they start school, research found yesterday.

The Sutton Trust report reveals the educational inequalities between the richest and poorest youngsters and the impact of parenting and a child's home environment on their vocabulary.

The findings show that by the age of five, youngsters from the poorest fifth of homes are already 11.1 months behind those from middle income homes in vocabulary tests.

And it reveals that reading and library visits are essential for young children - with youngsters who are read to daily and taken to the library regularly being more advanced in their language skills than those who are not.

The study, by Jane Waldfogel, professor of social work and public affairs at Colombia University, and visiting professor at the London School of Economics, and Elizabeth Washbrook, research associate at the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at Bristol University, analysed the information of 12,644 British five-year-olds tracked through a survey in 2006 and 2007.

It reveals that just under half (45 per cent) of children from the poorest fifth of families were read to daily at the age of three, compared to almost eight in 10 (78 per cent) of children from the richest fifth of families.

More than a third of children (37 per cent) from the poorest families have parents without a single GCSE at grade C or above between them, while only one in 12 of the poorest families had a degree- educated parent, compared to four in five of the richest.

And nearly half of youngsters (47 per cent) from the poorest families were born to mothers aged under 25.