Reading Facts

We want to create a world where everyone is reading their way to a better life. Research shows that reading for pleasure can promote better health and wellbeing, aids in building social connections and relationships with others and is associated with a range of factors that help increase the chances of social mobility.

Read our reports into the benefits of reading for pleasure and empowerment (BOP Consulting, 2015) and of creating a society of readers (Demos, 2018), or explore more reading stats and facts below.

Skills and Learning

Children

The need for our work

• One in four children hasn’t reached the expected level of reading by the age of 11. Many of these children will struggle to keep up at secondary school. ¹
• Literacy is the area in most urgent need of improvement with 182,000 five-year-olds (30%) not achieving the expected level of literacy in 2023/24. Also, 126,000 five-year-olds – 21% of the cohort – did not reach the expected level in communication and language.² 
• Further research, conducted in 2022, found that similar percentages of 15-year-olds across the UK do not have a minimum level of literacy proficiency: 20% in England and Scotland, 22% in Northern Ireland and 29% in Wales. ³
• Students are less able to learn other curricula if they do not develop sufficient reading skills by the middle of primary school.⁴
• Only 29% of 10-year-olds in England report that they like reading ‘very much’, compared to an international average of 46%.⁵
• By the final year of compulsory schooling, pupils from less disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds have significantly better reading scores, on average, than those from more disadvantaged backgrounds across all domains and all UK nations.⁶

Proven power of reading

• Reading for pleasure early in childhood is linked to better cognitive performance and mental wellbeing in adolescence.⁷
• Reading for pleasure is more important for children’s cognitive development than their parents’ level of education and is a more powerful factor in life achievement than socio-economic background.⁸
  16-year-olds who choose to read books for pleasure outside of school are more likely to secure managerial or professional jobs in later life.⁹
• Having books in the home is associated with both reading enjoyment and confidence. Of children who report having fewer than 10 books in their homes, 46% say they do not like reading and only 25% say they are ‘very confident’ readers. For children who report having over 200 books at home, only 11% say they do not like reading and 66% consider themselves ‘very confident’ readers.¹⁰
• Children who read books often at age 10 and more than once a week at age 16 gain higher results in maths, vocabulary and spelling tests at age 16 than those who read less regularly.¹¹

Adults

The need for our work

• In England, 1 in 2 adults don’t regularly read.¹²
• Around 8.2 million people (18% of adults) in England and Northern Ireland score at the lowest level of proficiency in literacy (at or below Level 1).^{13 14}
• Low levels of literacy cost the UK an estimated £81 billion a year in lost earnings and increased welfare spending, impacting on ‘the success of the economy as a whole’.¹⁵
• Improved literacy rates increase the likelihood of employment and higher wages.¹⁶ The likelihood of home ownership rises from 40% to 78% with improved literacy rates.¹⁷
• Adults with lower levels of literacy are more likely to believe that they have little impact on political processes, are less likely to participate in volunteer activities and report lower life satisfaction.¹⁸

Proven power of reading

• Per capita incomes are higher in countries where more adults reach the highest levels of literacy proficiency and fewer adults are at the lowest levels of literacy.¹⁹
• Reading extensively and for pleasure can foster the development of stronger reading habits and increase literacy skills at a greater rate than through formal literacy lessons.²⁰

Connected Communities

The need for our work

• Feelings of loneliness cut across all age groups. About 7.8% of adults report feeling lonely ‘always or often’.²¹
• People who are single, widowed, or in poor health are among those at increased risk of feeling lonely more often.²²
• Loneliness can cause serious physical harm: the health impacts are believed to be on the level of obesity or smoking.²³

Proven power of reading

• 19% of readers say that reading stops them from feeling lonely. ²⁴ This is backed up by a study analysing social connectedness which found that reading books significantly reduces feelings of loneliness for people aged 18-64.²⁵
• Participation in shared reading groups is linked to enhanced relaxation, calmness, concentration, quality of life, confidence and self-esteem, as well as feelings of shared community and common purpose.²⁶
• Higher literacy skills are associated with a range of positive societal benefits, including having a stronger sense of belonging to society and being more likely to trust others. ²⁷
• Studies have found that reading for pleasure enhances empathy, understanding of the self, and the ability to understand one’s own and others’ identities.²⁸

Health and Wellbeing

The need for our work

• 1 in 4 adults in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year, and about 1 in 6 adults in the UK are affected by a common mental health disorder each week.²⁹ This is estimated to cost the UK £300 billion per year – double the annual NHS budget.³⁰
• Children with reading difficulties are at greater risk of developing mental health problems later in life, including depression, anxiety, behavioural problems, anger and aggression. ³¹
• Non-readers are 28% more likely to report feelings of depression, an estimated 7.3 million people (13% of adults) in the UK say mental health-related reasons, such as depression or anxiety, stops them from reading. ³²

Proven power of reading

• Regular readers for pleasure in the UK reported fewer feelings of stress and depression than non-readers³³, and they report high life-satisfaction levels.³⁴
• 44% of regular readers said reading had improved their mental health and wellbeing, compared with 23% of lapsed and non-readers.³⁵
• Studies have shown that those who read for pleasure have higher levels of self-esteem and a greater ability to cope with difficult situations. Reading for pleasure was also associated with better sleeping patterns.³⁶

References

1. [DfE (2022) Academic year 2021/11: Key Stage 2 Attainment p.13] ↩︎
2. DfE (2024) Early years foundation stage profile results, Academic year 2023/24 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK ↩︎
3. PISA (2022) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA): Results from PISA 2022   ↩︎
4. [DfE (2016) DfE strategy 2015-20: World-class education and care p.24] ↩︎
5.  Lindorff, Stiff and Kayton (2024) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS): National Report for England, 2021 p. 109 ↩︎
6. PISA (2022) PISA 2022: national report for England p.163 ↩︎
7. Yun-Jun Sun & Barara J. Sahakian et al. (2023) Early-initiated childhood reading for pleasure: associations with better cognitive performance, mental well-being and brain structure in young adolescence | Psychological Medicine | Cambridge Core  ↩︎
8. [Sullivan and Brown (2013) Social inequalities in cognitive scores at age 16: The role of reading] ↩︎
9. [Taylor (2011) Reading at 16 linked to better job prospects] ↩︎
10. Lindorff, Stiff and Kayton (2024) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS): National Report for England, 2021 p. 104 and p111 ↩︎
11. Sullivan and Brown (2015) Reading for pleasure and progress in vocabulary and mathematics – British Educational Research Journal ↩︎
12. The Reading Agency (2024) The State of the Nation’s Adult Reading: 2024 Report ↩︎
13. Wheater et al. (2024) Survey of Adult Skills 2023 (PIAAC): national report for England ↩︎
14. Estimated number of adults calculated from Population estimates for England and Wales – Office for National Statistics (2023, England males & females, 18 and over) ↩︎
15. World Literacy Foundation (2023) The Economic and Social Cost of Illiteracy 2023 ↩︎
16. National Literacy Trust (2011) Literacy: A route of addressing child poverty? ↩︎
17. National Literacy Trust (2011) Literacy: A route of addressing child poverty? ↩︎
18.  OECD (2023) Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive in a Changing World? | OECD p 163-166 ↩︎
19. [OECD (2013) OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results From the Survey of Adult Skills] ↩︎
20. [Hilhorst, S, et al. (2018) A Society of Readers Demos p. 26] ↩︎
21. [Hilhorst, S, et al. (2018) A Society of Readers Demos p. 32] ↩︎
22. [Hilhorst, S, et al. (2018) A Society of Readers Demos p. 32] ↩︎
23. [DHSC (2018) Prevention is better than cure p. 10] ↩︎
24. [Billington, J (2015) Reading between the Lines: the Benefits of Reading for Pleasure Quick Reads University of Liverpool p. 6] ↩︎
25. Hilhorst, S, et al. (2018) A Society of Readers Demos p. 32 ↩︎
26. [Longden E., Davis P., Billington J., et al (2015) Shared Reading: Assessing the intrinsic value of a literature-based intervention Medical Humanities, 41 (2), pp. 113-20] ↩︎
27. Mind (2024) The Big Mental Health Report – Mind ↩︎
28. [Billington, J, (2015) Reading between the Lines: the Benefits of Reading for Pleasure Quick Reads University of Liverpool] ↩︎
29. [Hilhorst, S, et al. (2018) A Society of Readers Demos p. 30] ↩︎
30. Mind (2024) The Big Mental Health Report – Mind ↩︎
31. [Boyes, M. E., Leitao, S., Claessen, M., Badcock, N. A., and Nayton, M. (2016) Why Are Reading Difficulties Associated with Mental Health Problems? in Dyslexia, 22: 263-266] ↩︎
32. The Reading Agency (2024) State of the Nations Adult Reading 2024 Focus on Health and Wellbeing ↩︎
33. Billington, J, (2015) Reading between the Lines: the Benefits of Reading for Pleasure  ↩︎
34. The Reading Agency (2024) The State of the Nation’s Adult Reading: 2024 Report ↩︎
35. The Reading Agency (2024) The State of the Nation’s Adult Reading: 2024 Report ↩︎
36. Billington, J, (2015) Reading between the Lines: the Benefits of Reading for Pleasure  Billington, J and Steenberg, M. (2021) Literary Reading and Mental Wellbeing  ↩︎