UK reports find children reading fewer books, writing less
In the UK, an annual report tracking the book-reading habits of around 1.2 million students across the UK and Ireland has found a drop of 4.4% in the number of books being read by children and young people, reports the Bookseller.
The annual ‘What Kids Are Reading’ report, drawing on a study run by EdTech provider Renaissance, found that the reading decline was ‘particularly acute in secondary schools’. ‘Pupils read progressively more challenging books until year six, which then plateaus until Year 9, before a sharp drop in the difficulty of books being read by older secondary students,’ said Renaissance, which added that primary school students ‘consistently showed a higher quality of comprehension when reading’. With the exception of the first year of the Covid pandemic, it was the first time in the 16-year history of the report that there had been a decline in the number of books read.
Additional research from Renaissance and GL Assessment showed teachers believe a third (33%) of their students are ‘weak’ readers and that children are struggling to keep up with the curriculum due to their reading ability. According to the reported findings, a quarter (26%) of students are taken out of class for reading support.
Said Renaissance: ‘The report finds that primary school pupils read harder books as they get older, but during secondary school there is a downturn, particularly from year nine, with many secondary students reading books at a similar difficulty level to those of upper primary pupils.’
An additional piece of research from the National Literacy Trust (NLT) showed that ‘less than a third (29%) of children say they enjoy writing in their free time—the lowest level recorded by the charity since it first started surveying children about their writing in 2010’, reported the Bookseller. The survey of 76,000 UK children and young people, ‘Children and Young People’s Writing in 2024’, showed that only 11% of children write daily in their free time, down by almost half from 19% in 2023, while around a third (36%) say they rarely or never write in their free time, up 13% from last year.
Said the NLT: ‘Children’s enjoyment of writing and daily writing habits peak when they start primary school but steadily decline until they leave secondary school; indeed, three times as many children aged five to eight than those aged 14–16 say they enjoy writing (67% vs 22%) and five times as many say they write something daily in their free time (42% vs 8%).’
Category: International news
