Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure
www.theguardian.com
National Literacy Trust finds only 35% of eight to 18-year-olds enjoy reading in their spare time, a sharp drop on last year to the lowest figure yet recorded

Summary

A National Literacy Trust (NLT) survey reveals that children’s enjoyment of reading is at its lowest in 19 years, with only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds saying they enjoy reading in their free time.

This marks an 8.8 percentage point drop from last year, part of a declining trend since 2016.

Reading frequency has also hit a historic low, and a significant gender gap persists, with only 28.2% of boys versus 40.5% of girls enjoying reading.

The NLT calls for a government taskforce to address these declines, warning that “the futures of a generation are being put at risk.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    3·
    10 days ago

    Not just in the UK. In the U.S. too. We have never been able to get our daughter interested in reading. We read to her every night when she was a kid, but once she learned to read, she wasn’t interested in reading or us reading to her. She can read. She has no reading disabilities. When she’s assigned a book in school, she has no issue reading it and doing tests on it and such.

    But reading just doesn’t interest her in the slightest. It breaks her librarian mother’s heart, but nothing seems to convince her.