Gadgets are no substitute for books, says ex-Minister

Writing exclusively in The Yorkshire Post, the West Hull and Hessle MP explains how his humble upbringing has led him to become the new patron of the Booktrust charity which has launched a new scheme to provide reading material to children in care.

Born into abject poverty, and brought up by his sister after their mother’s premature death, Mr Johnson rose through the political ranks and held a variety of senior Cabinet posts – including Education Secretary – in the Blair and Brown governments.

Yet Mr Johnson admits that he would not have reached high political office if it was not for his late mother, Lilian, dragging him to the local library to learn to read.

“I believe my love of reading stemmed from those visits to the library and is what I would classify as being a salvation through a difficult childhood, and my sister, Linda, would agree,” he writes.

He remains perturbed that only 13 per cent of children in care will gain a benchmark five GCSE passes compared to 58 per cent of all children. Mr Johnson cites research which shows that “affluent children heard 45 million words by age four, children in working class families had heard 26 million, and a welfare child heard just 13 million – that’s a 32 million-word gap between rich and poor nursery-aged children”.

He adds: “How do we end up in a situation, which I am sure everybody wants to achieve, where your future is not defined by where you were born? It turns out that the best, most important thing you can give to a child is not toys or electronic gadgets but words. It’s also the cheapest.”

The one-time postman’s intervention comes after the region’s schools recorded the worst GCSE results in Britain as The Yorkshire Post’s Turning The Page campaign looks to help teachers to raise literacy standards.