A Recipe for Raising Young Readers

We all know the evidence about the importance of children’s reading for life chances – it is the absolute foundation to a happy, healthy and prosperous life. Reading by choice is the single biggest indicator of a child’s opportunity and future success; it can mediate socio-economic background and may help address endemic inequalities. (OECD, 2002, 2021).

Children who read are more likely to succeed in school and read more often, having a positive impact on vital reading skills, mental wellbeing, self-confidence and learning (Sullivan and Brown, 2013; Sun, et al., 2023). Read on to hear why our tried and tested approach to encouraging reading are crucial for raising young readers.

This is why the current data around declining engagement is so alarming. We are facing a very real crisis with only 1 in 3 children now saying that they enjoy reading – a drop of 33% since 2005. Only 29% of 10-year-olds in England now say that they like reading ‘very much’.  We also know that only 50% of adults read in their spare time and that 15% of adults never read for pleasure, a staggering 88% drop since 2015. This means that children are not benefitting from having positive reading role models at home that help to reinforce the habit. 

The national primary curriculum in England identifies the importance of reading motivation and reading for pleasure, but teachers can’t do it alone. With children’s reading engagement at crisis level, it is more important than ever to work together to apply ‘for-pleasure’ strategies, particularly for boys and children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Major, et al., 2021).   

Our work shows that national community reading programmes such as the Summer Reading Challenge, delivered into communities and families by public libraries, can make a unique contribution and are absolutely part of the solution.

The Summer Reading Challenge builds the reading habit in children and families. It created over 100,000 new library members last year with children reading and borrowing c.13.4 million books during the Summer – including more than 800,000 e-books and audiobooks. After taking part in the Challenge, 95% of children say they read for enjoyment at least once a week. This is particularly encouraging given half were reading infrequently before the Challenge. In addition, 70% of children said they feel more confident reading and that their reading skills have improved. These positive changes continue into the new school year especially for less confident readers. 

The Summer Reading Challenge works because it’s delivered within an evidence-based framework driven by tried and tested principles. We have based our pedagogy on 25 years of research and data evaluation, and we know what works for getting children into reading.

So what are its magic ingredients?

Firstly, free choice is so important: children want agency in selecting reading material which depends on good curation, experimentation and free access to content — all of which libraries provide.  

The hook not the book: using interest pathways like sport or music can be effective in engaging children who don’t see themselves as readers. Let’s also expand our definition of reading to embrace comics and graphic novels, audio, and even narrative-driven gaming. 

Representation and inclusion: it is essential that children see themselves in the books they read, and that content is accessible for all, including children with specific reading needs. 

Activation: it’s not enough to just give a child a book. Those not choosing to read need encouragement, incentives and enrichment activities to help them into books.  

Cross-sector collaboration: schools can’t do it alone and neither can parents and carers. When schools, libraries, local services and families work together, evidence shows an amplified impact on children’s reading engagement.  

Family focus: supporting adult literacy and family reading initiatives creates a positive ripple effect for children. Remember that stat at the beginning about the number of adults in the UK that struggle with their reading? If they are not supported, how can they become positive reading role models for the children in their families?

Fun first: Start with learning, and reading becomes a chore; start with fun and the learning happens by default. 

So let’s get everyone fired up about reading because everything changes when you read. 

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Contact us at info@readingagency to find out more about our work or find out how you can get involved in our programmes below.