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‘Literacy Skills Are Valued By Employers – It’s Worrying That Many Teenagers Don’t Share This View’

UK teens are increasingly less likely than younger children to pick up a book for pleasure, says Jonathan Douglas – so what can schools do to turn things around?

Jonathan Douglas
by Jonathan Douglas
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Enjoying a good book is losing its appeal for teenagers. Once upon a time they may have devoured the latest page-turner by a favourite author, but their love of reading appears to steadily wane as they progress through secondary school, National Literacy Trust research has found.

Our 2015 Children and Young People’s Reading survey, shows just 40.2% of Key Stage 4 pupils, aged between 14 and 16, say they enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot, compared to 72.6% of the eight to 11-year-olds in Key Stage 2 who were asked.

This is not a new story. This gap in reading enjoyment between primary and secondary school pupils has lasted since 2010, and the difference between the two age groups has been 31.1 percentage points on average.

Not only do teenagers say they enjoy reading much less than younger children, they are also far less likely to have positive attitudes towards the activity. Just a quarter (24.1%) of Key Stage 4 pupils say reading is cool, in contrast with 70.5% of Key Stage 2 children.

Of greater concern than being cool, or not, is that pupils who are preparing to leave secondary school and embark on the next chapter of their lives are far less likely to see the relevance of reading to their job prospects. Only 36.4% of Key Stage 4 pupils say agree that being good at reading will lead to a better job, compared with 71.3% at Key Stage 2.

However, reading is the foundation on which literacy skills are built, and good literacy skills are valued by employers from every sector. It’s worrying that so many teenagers don’t share this view.

Time and energy

Despite their varying attitudes and enjoyment, the two age groups have similar daily reading patterns, with 41.4% of Key Stage 4 pupils and 45.5% of Key Stage 2 pupils reading something daily outside class which is not for school. However, more Key Stage 4 pupils (39.4%) than Key Stage 2 children (25.1%) say they cannot find things to read that interest them.

The research revealed children tend to choose different reading material according to their age with Key Stage 4 pupils, who are more likely to have access to a computer, tablet or mobile, selecting more technology-based formats such as websites, emails and instant messaging, and fewer fiction and non-fiction books, poems, and magazines than children in Key Stage 2.

Primary schools have been the focus of a huge amount of energy put into reading for enjoyment since the National Literacy Strategy, involving creative work by both primary schools and the third sector with initiatives such as the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge and the National Literacy Trust’s Young Readers Programme.

Our research indicates the need for more of these energies to be released into the secondary stage, where despite great work by English departments and librarians, pupils seem to be struggling to sustain their enjoyment of reading. Reasons could include the pressures of academic studies and increasing amounts of homework, leaving less time to read for enjoyment and less campaigning at secondary stage by the third sector.

Reducing parental influence could be having an impact too. During secondary education, role models other than mums, dads and teachers become increasingly important in influencing children’s reading habits.

Routes to success

The National Literacy Trust keeps reading relevant for secondary school students by partnering with cultural influencers including footballers, musicians and comedians to reach Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils. As well as engaging pupils, the National Literacy Trust offers Key Stage 2 and 3 Reading for Enjoyment teacher training and our Literacy for Life programme cultivates reading for enjoyment across all curriculum subjects.

Reading for enjoyment is important, because children who enjoy reading are three times more likely to read above the level expected for their age as pupils who do not enjoy reading at all.

Overall, the research shows a clear correlation between attainment and attitudes, reading enjoyment and frequency. Levels of daily reading and enjoyment are both at their highest for a decade, having increased again in 2015. Of all the 32,569 eight to 18-year-olds who completed the survey, 54.8% enjoy reading, and 43% read every day.

A comparison between technology and paper formats revealed pupils spend more than twice as much time reading online each day (100.42 minutes) than they spend reading books (41.59 minutes). Across formats, children are nearly twice as likely to read for fun every day (31.6%) than for information (17.9%).

More girls read for fun, reflecting a persistent gender gap with 61.2% of girls saying they enjoy reading compared to 47.8% of boys. Half of girls (49.5%) compared to a third of (36.0%) of boys read daily.

Ultimately, this intrinsic motivation to read needs to be nurtured as pupils progress through secondary school, because it will help them to succeed academically and in life.

Jonathan Douglas is Director of the National Literacy Trust; for more information, visit www.literacytrust.org.uk or follow @literacy_trust

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