British children 'slow' at learning language

Children learning English as a first language lag behind their European counterparts being taught their own languages.

Researchers have compared the skills of primary school children in Scotland with 14 other countries and have found that the Scottish children took two to three years to reach the same literacy levels as their foreign counterparts.

Professor Phillip Seymour has said "the main cause is linguistic and derives from difficulties created by the complex syllable structure and inconsistent spelling system of English".

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