WORK being done in Bradford to improve the reading and writing skills of the district’s young people will be used as an example of how to improve standards nationally at a conference in London today.

Two years ago the National Literacy Trust set up a hub in Bradford in response to poor reading levels in certain parts of the district.

Since then the Trust has run numerous events in the area, including school visits, competitions and work in children’s centres, among other activities.

Today the hub will will be discussed at a seminar looking at key findings of work done in Bradford and two other hubs in Middlesbrough and Peterborough.

And the conference, called A Place-Based Response to Low Literacy has proved to be timely - the Trust is currently taking an active role in the Bradford Literature Festival.

This week there is a hub in City Park, in partnership with Boots, offering free books and literary activities to those attending the ten-day event.

There will be numerous school visits by authors and poets taking part in the festival.

Today’s seminar will hear that in Bradford attitudes towards writing have improved since the hub was established, with more children and young people aged 11 to 14 writing every day or a few times a week outside of school.

Some of the highlights of the Trust’s work in Bradford includes a partnership with the Bradford Teaching Hospitals Trust to hand out books to new parents, promoting the importance of reading with children from day one, and various projects to provide boys with strong male role models who read, hoping to dismiss the notion that reading and writing is more of a girl’s pastime.

Those involved with this project included Bradford boxer Tasif Khan and players from Bradford City and Bradford Bulls.

The Telegraph & Argus has also partnered with the trust on several occasions, including running a gallery of fathers reading with their children for Father’s Day.

The manager of the hub, Imran Hafeez, also gives regular updates on the work of the trust in the city to Bradford Council, who are one of the main supporters of the hub.

A survey of 1,172 pupils from seven schools in Bradford explored children and young people’s communication, reading and writing skills.

The findings show that 52.6 per cent of children surveyed write regularly outside school, compared to 39.7 per cent regionally and 44.1 per cent nationally.

It also found that 63.5 per cent of young people in Bradford agree that if they are good readers, they will get a better job when they grow up, compared to their peers in Yorkshire and Humber (49.9 per cent).

There was a 113.7 per cent rise in the number of children reading outside class every day compared to 2014, before the hub was set up.

The number of children who write outside class a few times a week also doubled from 21.2 per cent in 2014 to 43 per cent in 2015.

And young people’s views of reading have also changed - the number who agree that girls tend to enjoy writing more than boys has halved (42.2 per cent in 2014 against 21.9 per cent in 2015).

The report being presented today includes a case study of a family who have started visiting their local children’s centre more often thanks to the work of the hub.

Osman Riaz, who visits St Edmund’s Children’s Centre with his daughter, said: “Me and my daughter really enjoy all the fun activities and it’s a great chance to meet other dads and talk about any problems.”