Six years ago in West Dunbartonshire we made a bold declaration - "10 years and we will end illiteracy". The task was vast. Figures from the Office for National Statistics and other sources indicated that every year over 100,000 young people leave UK schools without the basic literacy skills they require to function adequately in society. The estimate for Scotland was 20 percent, rising to 40 per cent in the poorest areas.

Eradicating illiteracy for an entire school population in the second poorest area in Scotland seemed an impossible undertaking. However, not to do so was unthinkable. It would be to tolerate the intolerable. Decades of research, such as the Basic Skills Agency study at age 30 of the British cohort born in 1970, showed that poor literacy affects health, wealth and happiness. It closes employment markets, impoverishes the economy and lowers quality of life. For those in the poorest areas it multiplies any disadvantages they already have in life. We therefore decided on zero tolerance of illiteracy.

The size of the task was clear. In 2003, 28 per cent of children leaving primary school, aged almost 12, were functionally illiterate (using the common standard of a reading age under nine-and-a-half years). Our own studies showed that most of these children would still be in the same position at the end of their schooling.

A two-stage approach was adopted in a 10-year study involving individual and group testing of over 7,000 children every year. First, by a comprehensive early intervention programme at pre-school and early primary, we would raise standards and reduce the numbers experiencing reading failure. Secondly, we would identify every child still failing and tackle this with intensive individual support until success was achieved. By 2003 the first part of the strategy had been dramatically successful, although none of the intervention sample had yet reached the top end of primary. Addressing their needs was the starting point for stage two.

The choice of programme for individual support was clear. Keda Cowling's Toe by Toe met all our research criteria. It was a simple, direct, phonics-based programme by means of which a young person could be taken systematically and successfully through all the key skills of basic literacy. It was also inexpensive, and could be used without lengthy training. Pilot work conducted with my research colleague, Anne-Marie MacDonald, a Toe by Toe expert, gave us confidence in its potential to wipe out illiteracy in our struggling readers. With very short interventions, we were seeing gains in reading scores of over three years.

These remarkable results had to be tested more rigorously, so we set up an experimental study. Twenty-four secondary pupils with low reading ages were matched in pairs and allocated to an experimental Toe by Toe group or to a control group receiving the normal package of learning support. All were tested before the intervention and one year later. During that year the experimental group were taught individually with Toe by Toe for 20 minutes a day, five days a week, over an average three-month period. The results were definitive. The experimental group made average gains of three-and-a-half years. The control group made average gains of five months.

The next step was to take the programme into the primaries. The 35 schools in the authority were asked to identify their poorest readers aged 11 and over. The children were tested individually and 104 from 32 schools were selected, all with scores below functional literacy levels. Every school put forward people for training - teachers, classroom assistants, volunteers. Unlike other effective programmes such as Reading Recovery, our scheme required minimal training. It was so simple and self-explanatory that we offered a half-day session, with further advice available on request.

There is a big difference between one expert teaching children in a research study and over 100 new volunteers implementing a programme on a large scale. We expected this to be reflected in the results. Nevertheless, the initial outcomes have been extremely encouraging. Re-testing within five months, even before the programme was completed, showed average gains of 14 months. Within that short period, a third of the pupils no longer had a reading problem. Twenty per cent had gained over two years in their reading age, and some had gained over three years. Only a few had not shown reasonable gains, but we are confident that with more time this will be addressed.

The volunteers had minimal training and almost no monitoring - and we found that often they were doing the wrong thing. We now have thorough supervision arrangements, and our simple belief is that if Toe by Toe is done exactly as the book says, then the results will be exceptional. Three more years and we hope to announce that West Dunbartonshire is an illiteracy-free zone.

Frank Cowling, managing partner of Keda Publications, tells how Toe by Toe was introduced as part of a literacy initiative in HMP Wandsworth. The success of the scheme has sparked a nationwide interest from other UK prisons.

HMP Wandsworth is one of those Victorian prisons whose layout has become so familiar through repeated episodes of TV show Porridge. It was in Wandsworth's chapel that a group of governors and prison officers from around the country gathered last summer.

The meeting had been organised by Wandsworth prison officer Neil Lodge, who has become one of the driving forces behind the Shannon Reading Plan - an initiative dedicated to the teaching of literacy skills to prisoners. Facing the audience with Neil were two septuagenarian speakers: Chris Morgan, founder of the Shannon Trust, and Keda Cowling, creator of Toe by Toe. Also in the chapel were a group of prisoners already acting as mentors for the initiative. Neil Lodge described how the scheme worked, before Chris gave his vision of the plan's future and Keda described how she developed the Toe by Toe system. That afternoon the visitors went to the cells to see the scheme in action. The sense of pride felt by both mentors and mentees, and the rapport which had developed between them, made it an emotional experience for Chris and Keda.

Chris Morgan founded The Shannon Trust in 1996. It has no paid staff and was originally financed solely by proceeds from sales of a book, The Invisible Crying Tree, a record of correspondence between Chris and Tom Shannon, a 'lifer' in the British prison system. The Trust provides copies of Toe by Toe to prisons free of charge and administration is done by the prisoners themselves, meaning prison officers need only loosely monitor the process.

The most remarkable feature of the initiative is that prisoners are taught to read in their own cells by their literate fellow inmates. For years Chris had been looking for a way to help prisoners using a 'buddy system', and Toe by Toe seemed to fit the bill. Being taught to read in their own cells by fellow inmates would be a rewarding use of both prisoners' time; sessions might also improve the self-esteem of both parties.

It took time, but in 2000 Chris succeeded in getting a pilot project established in HMP Wandsworth. He knew that if it succeeded in a prison as tough as Wandsworth, it could work anywhere. And succeed it has. By the end of 2001, Neil Lodge was happy to report that 148 men had learned to read at Wandsworth, only five had dropped out and there had been a marked improvement in the behaviour of the participants. Chris' next step was to spread this example of 'best practice' around other prisons. Unfortunately, persuading others to adopt it proved problematic. It was clear that governors were often reluctant to delegate extra duties to their prison officers.

The cooperation of prison officers was crucial and the breakthrough came in February 2003 when Chris succeeded in persuading the Prison Officers Association (POA) of the plan's benefits. The Scottish POA and the POA of Northern Ireland are now participating. The Shannon Trust now has 60 volunteer representatives with a back-up team of six retired governors working to introduce the scheme nationwide. Fifty-five prisons have adopted the scheme and more than 30 others are discussing taking part. Many officers have reported that their wings are kinder and less tense.

A conservative estimate places 40 per cent of prisoners in the UK as non-readers, which amounts to 30,000 prisoners. Chris' ambition is to reach them all and thus reduce the likelihood of recidivism at a stroke.

Problems do remain, of course. Britain's prison population exceeds 70,000 - more than the rest of Western Europe combined. Overcrowding and attendant problems mean that prisons have little time to devote to educational initiatives and rehabilitation cannot possibly receive high priority. Simply finding a suitably quiet place for a Toe by Toe session is proving problematic. Prisoners are frequently transferred around the country's prisons and this often disrupts the scheme, although Chris is helping students to take their books with them and hopefully find mentors in their new prison.

Cynicism is an easy trap to fall into - especially when you are dealing with the prison system - but an interview with Chris would convince the most hardened cynic that altruism does exist in the world. We can only wish him well.

Subscribe to Literacy Today