Phonics roadshows and English hubs are among a range of measures announced by the government in an attempt to improve child literacy.

The programmes will form part of the drive to tackle inequality and ensure “every child will get the best literacy teaching”, the education secretary, Justine Greening, has said.

The Department for Education said a £7.7m curriculum fund aimed to encourage the development of high quality teaching resources, while it was hoped a £5.7m investment would help boost literacy and numeracy skills in 469 schools around the country.

Thirty-five English hubs across the country will be set up by a new Centre of Excellence for Literacy Teaching, to focus on raising standards in schools, while language development at home will be the focus of a fund trialling approaches across the north of England.

The measures are part of the government’s social mobility action plan, called “unlocking talent, fulfilling potential”, which was published last month.

Greening said: “School standards are rising, with 1.9 million more children being taught in good or outstanding schools than in 2010.

“Our ambition is that no community will be left behind on education. Today’s literacy investment will help make sure that not just most but every child arrives at school with the vocabulary levels they need to learn. And our investment will mean that once they are at school every child will get the best literacy teaching.”

But Michael Rosen, the author and former children’s laureate, described the move as “window dressing” intended to hide cuts to education funding.

Every government forlast 30 years has come up with half-baked, ill-thought out schemes to 'solve' attainment gaps, social mobility etc and there have been teams of apologists and media hacks to claim that it'll work. Hubs are just another bit of window-dressing to hide the cuts. — Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) January 6, 2018

For every person who comes forward to say 'Hubs' are the answer, ask them what happened to EducationActionZones, Beacon Schools, City Technology Colleges or why SATs, GPS, PSC, Academies, Free Schools aren't the 'answer'. — Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) January 6, 2018

The children’s author Alan Gibbons also criticised the move, which comes amid widespread cuts to library funding.

Government closes getting on for 500 libraries, sacks a quarter of librarians, hands over libraries to volunteers, slashes book funds, cuts opening hours and takes the public library service to the brink, then announces 'hubs.' https://t.co/NcCoH4iPr6 — Alan Gibbons (@mygibbo) January 6, 2018

The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “Once again this government believes that these small initiatives are enough to reverse the damage they are doing to our schools.

“This funding will do nothing to change the fact that £2.7bn has been cut from the budgets of England’s schools since 2015, and that teacher recruitment targets have been missed for the fifth year in a row.

“Until this government gets the basics right, they will never be able to deliver the education that every child deserves.

“The next Labour government will reverse the Conservatives’ cuts to school funding, protect funding in real terms and end the public sector pay cap to give our teachers the pay rise they deserve.”