Thousands of primary school children struggling with literacy and numeracy skills are to receive one-to-one catch-up lessons, ministers have announced.
Intensive early intervention projects will aim to stop youngsters from falling behind, which if not addressed, can impact on their schooling later on.
Official figures published last month, based on national curriculum tests, show that one in five 11-year-olds are failing to reach the standard expected of their age group in English and maths.
In writing, just 67% reach this standard, in reading it is 86% and in maths the proportion is 78%.
The new package of measures, designed to boost these standards, will see £169 million invested in three programmes over the next three years.
Ministers said 23,500 children would be covered by all the programmes from this month, rising to 100,000 a year by 2011.
The Every Child A Writer initiative, for seven and eight year olds, will focus on schools which have the weakest writing results at the end of Key Stage 1 - the standard expected of seven year olds, with five or six children from each school receiving individual support.
The scheme will be piloted in nine areas, a total of 135 schools and 2,500 pupils, from this month, and rolled out nationally by 2011.
Every Child Counts, for six-year-olds will focus on maths skills, and is targeted at the bottom 5% of pupils at Key Stage 1. It is being piloted in 21 areas from this month.
The Every Child A Reader, which focuses on five year olds, is also to be expanded so that by 2010/11 30,000 children struggling with reading will be receiving extra support.
