Reading. It is not all doom and gloom.

Children are reading less than ever before research reveals
Just a quarter of under-18s read each day, study shows..
 (The Guardian website 29/2/20)

​At the weekend, on the eve of 'World Book Week', a number of newspapers printed headlines like the one above.  However, the numbers quoted in the newspapers do not always tell the whole story.  The headline figures are for all children aged 8 to 18.  Within this range, there are smaller groups for whom the numbers vary greatly. It was reported that the National Literacy Trust research showed that daily reading had declined to just 26% of children.  As someone who works in the primary sector, I see lots of wonderful work going on in schools to engender a love of reading, or at the least develop a reading habit, and didn't really believe that the numbers could be this low.
 
I have had a look at the latest data from the NLT research.  You can see in the graph below, the number of children enjoying reading in KS2 is dramatically different to the children in other age ranges.

If you look at the percentage of children enjoying reading either very much or quite a lot in ages 8-11 from 2005 (67.5%) to 2017/18, then there has been an increase of 10% to 77%. 

If you look at the ‘Setting the baseline’ literacy survey for children aged 5 to 8, then you can see that the numbers are broadly similar. 76.3% of children at this age group like reading, which is encouraging.
 
The number of children who read daily outside of class is reported as 'in continued decline.'
 
However, in the age group 8 – 11 this number has risen gradually over the last 14 years from 40.5% to 46.7%.  This number is not ideal, but it is a step, albeit a small one, in the right direction.

• Almost 71% of KS2 children think that reading is cool – this then drops off a cliff in KS3/4 down to 36.2% and 26% respectively. 
• 75.8% of KS2 children said there were lots of things they want to read which again is a dramatic difference in KS3 which drops to 50% of children.

So I think it is fair to see, Primary School educators - we are doing a good job.  There is a way to go and barriers to reading enjoyment and habitual reading to overcome but we are on the right path.

​As always, comments and corrections welcome. 

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Surveys are available on The National Literacy Trust Website www.literacytrust.org.uk
 
References:
Clark, C. (2019). Children and young people’s reading in 2017/18: Findings from our Annual Literacy Survey. London: National Literacy Trust.
Teravainen-Goff, A. (2019). Annual Literacy Survey 2019: Aged 5 to 8. Setting a baseline. London: National Literacy Trust.

As always, comments and corrections welcome.