Some children 'unable to read by secondary school', Glasgow councillors hear

Councillors have heard that some Glasgow children are still unable to read by the time they reach secondary school.

It comes as primary schools in the city are rolling out a new system to try and make sure every child can read.

The city’s education boss is also considering keeping a register of children within schools who can’t read so advice can be given.

Education executive director John McGhee said a method called systematic synthetic phonics is being introduced in all primary schools to help teach pupils.

Mr McGhee said: “There are significant numbers of young people who are really struggling with reading and literacy. So we have made an absolute commitment that we are addressing that. To my mind, it is a fundamental human right that young people should be able to read.”

Speaking at Thursday’s education, skills and early years city policy committee, Mr McGhee added: “By the end of P3 children should have some level of being able to read.”

He added: “We are toying with the idea of having a central register of non-readers so we can target very specific advice. If this was a health concern, we would be doing that.”

He was responding to a question from council leader Susan Aitken about the progress in improving literacy and numeracy.

Councillor Aitken told the committee: “The headlines around the continuous improvement of outcomes in education over a number of years are a great Scottish success story.”

During 2025, 68% of Glasgow pupils achieved curriculum for excellence levels in literacy in P1, P4 and P7 compared to 74% nationally.

Literacy was discussed as councillors were presented with education’s annual business plan.

The plan pointed out the majority of Glasgow pupils are from deprived areas – but despite that, results are higher than those from comparable backgrounds.

The plan said: “Over half (57.1%) of all pupils in Glasgow live in the most deprived Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation deciles. Despite this, pupils in Glasgow in SIMD 1 achieve more tariff points (728) on average when compared to pupils in the same cohort across Scotland (655).”

It added: “Over a quarter (29.1%) of pupils in the city speak English as an additional language. There are 175 different languages spoken by pupils in Glasgow’s schools.”