English children now most literate in Europe and shoot up the leaderboard to ... trends now
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England has moved into the top five in international rankings for reading but girls' skills have declined, a global study has found.
Primary school children in England are the fourth most literate in the world, the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study shows.
Nine and ten-year-olds outperformed their counterparts in the United States and overtook Finland and Poland to perform better than any country in Europe.
The results were hailed by Rishi Sunak who said pupils and teachers 'should be incredibly proud of this achievement'.
He said: 'Driving up literacy rates is central to our plan to grow the economy, one of my five key priorities, so it's great to see England move up to fourth in the international rankings for reading.
England has moved into the top five in international rankings for reading but girls' skills have declined, a global study has found (File image)
'These results also show a welcome narrowing in the attainment gap between boys and girls and the highest and lowest performing pupils. This shows that our approach is working.'
Overall, girls were ahead of boys in their reading achievement in nearly all the
