Middle-class parents need to spend more time reading with and talking to their children, an expert on child development said yesterday.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, said that two fifths of children failed to reach a good level of development by the time they started school, according to a ranking that measured behaviour and understanding.
Although efforts up to now have focused on dealing with a small number of problem families, Sir Michael said that parents from a variety of backgrounds needed to do more to help children. Releasing his latest report on childhood inequality, he revealed that a fifth of parents questioned in a survey did not believe that it was important to talk