Approximately 1 in 11 boys are leaving primary school with a reading age of only seven years old.
The BBC investigation found that according to the SATs, in some areas of the UK up to 15% of boys are leaving primary school with very low skills :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12000886
Just before leaving primary school, children take a reading test as part of their Sats examinations. They are then marked into categories, level 4 being the expected standard.
According to the Department for Education statistics, the proportion of children gaining that grade has increased dramatically over the last 15 years, from 49% to 81%.
But this masks a stubborn problem at the lower end of the school spectrum. In 1995, the proportion of 11-year-olds getting Level 2 or below in English – the standard expected of a seven-year-old – was 7%. In 2010, it had fallen only to 5%.
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