Jean Gross highlights ‘extreme’ cases of illiteracy
Communication champion Jean Gross has backed poverty czar Frank Field and said there are certain cases of illiteracy when a child will not even know the most basic language.
Speaking on the Today programme, she described how she has spoken to many head teachers in the UK and – anecdotally at least – the issue appears to be getting worse.
In her opinion, the official data collected regarding child literacy presents a fairly mixed picture, with higher numbers of problems detected in the past five years potentially down to more efficient work by teachers in spotting warning signals.
Ms Gross described how the extreme is "where children might not know they have a name but also about the children who don't have many words, can't express themselves or don't understand what is said to them".
Her role at the Communication Trust requires her to represent children's needs in the fields of speech, language and general communication.
