Truth about Local Government · Matt Masters

Beyond the Books: Why Reading Matters to Society and What Schools Need Now

·16 min·1 clip

Low literacy costs the UK £81 billion yearly, but better readers engage more in democracy.

This episode features host Matt interviewing Callum Glendinning, a reading development consultant at Daisy Education, about the societal importance of literacy and current challenges in UK schools. Glendinning's company provides educational software designed to improve reading and maths skills. The conversation explores the broad impacts of literacy rates and the specific tools schools can use. One in two adults in England does not regularly read, according to statistics from The Reading Agency cited by Glendinning. He states over eight million UK adults have the lowest proficiency in literacy, costing the economy an estimated £81 billion annually. Higher literacy is linked to better employment prospects, wages, home ownership, and engagement in political processes. In schools, one in four children does not reach the expected reading level by age 11, limiting their access to the wider curriculum. Only 29% of 10-year-olds in England report liking reading, compared to an international average of 46%. A key barrier is the physical skill of eye tracking; a study tracking eye movements found inefficient readers' eyes jump around the page instead of moving sequentially. This makes reading mentally taxing and frustrating, as students pause on simple words and struggle to infer meanings of complex vocabulary like "oyster." Another barrier is the lack of immediate, comprehensive data for teachers to profile individual students' reading strengths and weaknesses upon entering secondary school. Daisy Education's software includes a patented "Guided Reading Window," a visual bar that moves across text to train left-to-right eye tracking. The program provides educators with live data and individualized learning pathways for each student. It recommends 60 to 90 minutes of use per week, aiming to scaffold skills for confident paper-based reading without replacing it. The company offers free pilots for interested schools. A surprising claim is that the decline in reading longer texts in classrooms has been occurring for 40 years, predating the rise of technology. Glendinning argues that enhancing the enjoyment of reading is crucial for forming a lifelong habit. He positions the software as a tool to protect teachers' time by automating individualized interventions. The tone is conversational and interview-based, with a clear educational and promotional focus on Daisy Education's solutions. The style is informative, blending statistical evidence with explanations of pedagogical technology. This episode would appeal to educators, school administrators, and local authority officials responsible for literacy programs and educational budgets. Listeners seeking a critical debate on screen time in education or broader systemic critiques of literacy policy might find the episode too narrowly focused on one commercial solution.

As heard by us

A school level reading conversation that stays focused on mechanics and classroom practice.

This episode treats reading less as an abstract skill than as a school problem with real consequences, and Callum Glendinning makes that case from inside the system.

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Why you'd press play

When you want reading support framed as a practical school problem, not a slogan.

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