Literacy Levels are Improving

You might be forgiven from reading the national media for thinking that we are churning out a generation of illiterate kids with the attention span of a gnat. This seems to be the common conception of modern education, except that it's a misconception.

According to the National Literacy Trust's State of the Nation and Impact Report 2013/2014 there are some encouraging upwards trends in the nation's school literacy attainment levels. Here's a selection of those upward trends:

Key Stage 1 Phonics:

Key Stage 1 Phonics Reading / Writing:

Key Stage 2:

GCSE English Attainment:

Enjoyment of Reading:

And this picture is repeated internationally too (Source: Literacy Rates around the World from the 15th century to now taken from ourworldindata.org):