Children's and Young People's Reading in 2012: Findings from the 2012 National Literacy Trust's Annual Survey
Author: Clark, Christina
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Foreign Countries,National Surveys,Literacy,Children,Adolescents,Reading,Literature Appreciation,Reading Ability,Reading Materials,Reading Attitudes,Recreational Reading,Incidence,Reading Tests,Reading Achievement,Gender Differences,Age Differences,Literary Genres,Socioeconomic Background,Racial Differences,Comparative Analysis,Tables (Data),Elementary Secondary Education

This report reveals that children and young people are reading less and more are embarrassed to be seen reading, while many also believe that their parents don't care if they spend time reading. However, not only are children and young people reading less and developing more negative attitudes towards reading, but there is also a clear correlation between this and their performance in reading tests. Key findings for 2012 include: (1) 50.3% of young people enjoy reading either &quot;very much&quot; or &quot;quite a lot&quot;; 12.2% of young people do not enjoy reading at all and 37.5% only enjoy reading &quot;a bit&quot; (see Table 8, p. 26). Levels of reading enjoyment have remained stable since 2005 (see Figure 12, p. 61); (2) 28.4% of young people read outside of class every day, with another 27.6% reading a few times a week. However, 23.4% of young people say that they rarely or never read outside of class (see Table 12, p. 33). Compared with previous years, fewer children and young people in 2012 read daily outside of class (see Figure 2, p. 11); (3) Technology-based formats, such as text messages (68.4%), websites (53.2%) and messages on social networking sites (51.1%) are most commonly read outside of class at least once a month. Magazines (53.6%), lyrics (45.6%) and fiction (41.6%) are the most common non-technology reading choices (see Table 10, pp. 28 ). While the reading of many formats, including technology, continues to fall, the proportion of children and young people who read eBooks has doubled since 2010 from 5.6% to 11.9% (see Figure 4, p. 12) for more comparisons with data from 2010 and 2011); (4) Many young people think positively about reading (see Tables 16.1 to 16.10, pp. 41). 78.5% agree that &quot;the more I read, the better I become&quot;, and 37.7% agree that &quot;reading is cool&quot;. However, 31.9% agree that &quot;I don't read as well as other pupils in my class&quot; and 30.4% of young people agree that &quot;I only read when I have to&quot;. In 2012, attitudes towards reading became more negative. For example, since 2010, there has been a 29.5% increase in the number of children and young people who agreed that they would be embarrassed if their friends saw them reading (increasing from 16.6% in 2010 to 21.5% in 2012); (5) Young people who enjoy reading very much are four times as likely to read above the level expected for their age compared with young people who do not enjoy reading at all. Similarly, young people who read outside of class daily are five times as likely to read above the expected level for their age compared with young people who never read outside of class (see Tables 17 to 32, pp. 51 for more information on reading attainment); (6) The gap between boys and girls in terms of their enjoyment of reading and the frequency with which they read has narrowed slightly since 2010; (7) While 8 to 11-year-olds continue to enjoy reading more, read more often and think more positively about reading than either 11 to 14-year-olds and 14 to 16-year-olds, there was a significant drop in 2012 in the proportion of 8 to 11-year-olds who read for pleasure or who read daily. For example, there was a 12% decrease in the number of 8 to 11-year-olds who said that they enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot between 2011 and 2012; and (8) The gap in the enjoyment of reading between young people who receive free school meals and those who do not has narrowed considerably between 2011 and 2012, decreasing from a 5.5 percentage point difference in 2011 to a 3 percentage point difference in 2012. Indeed, it is now even smaller than it was seven years ago (3.7 percentage point difference). The following are appended: (1) An introduction to the annual literacy survey; (2) Methodology; and (3) Sample characteristics.