THE Children’s Laureate accused primary school teachers yesterday of failing their pupils by using literacy hours to do their marking rather than encourage reading.

As a result, many children were not given the inspiration or encouragement to learn to love books, Michael Morpurgo, a former teacher, told The Times.

Mr Morpurgo, who is one of Britain’s most successful writers of young fiction, said:

“Although there are many wonderful teachers who love books, there are equally as many for whom books are simply ‘a tool for literacy hour’. That can put children off extremely easily.”

Writers who visit schools up and down the country repeatedly encountered teachers who regarded a reading session as a chance to do their marking, he said, noting the negative message that that sent to the children.

“In doing that, the teacher is showing children that ‘this is not interesting’.

“Time and time again, there are instances of a writer going into a school and the teacher even doesn’t come, leaving it instead to a teaching assistant. This shouldn’t happen even once. There are far too many teachers teaching our young children who don’t love books.”

The Children’s Laureate is a roving ambassador for books, a post awarded every two years to a British writer or illustrator to celebrate outstanding achievement in his or her field.Ted Hughes, the late Poet Laureate, lobbied the Culture Department to begin the initiative and was patron of the award until his death in 1998.

The illustrator Quentin Blake was the first Children’s Laureate, in 1999, followed by the author Anne Fine, whose Madame Doubtfire inspired the Robin Williams film Mrs Doubtfire.

Until he was 30, Mr Morpurgo whose books, even those aimed at six-year-olds, deal with birth and death, conflict, families and relationships, taught in schools.

Telling stories to pupils inspired him to write. He has since published 100 books in 25 languages and has won several literary awards, including the Smarties Prize and Whitbread Children’s Book.

He was talking to The Times yesterday after adding another to the list, the Red House Children’s Book Award, known as the “children’s choice” because it is Britain’s only major children’s literary prize voted for entirely by children.

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