Reading for Pleasure – Why the decline and what could we do about it?
Charlotte Hacking considers a major problem of our time.
New research from publisher HarperCollins revealed last week that ‘parents are losing the love of reading aloud.’ One of the most striking findings was that, despite reading aloud to children being a proven way to boost their enjoyment of reading, the number of parents reading aloud to children is at an all-time low. Fewer than half (41%) of 0–4-year-olds are read to frequently, a steep decline from 64% in 2012. The new data also revealed that many parents don’t find enjoyment in reading to their children, with only 40% of parents saying it is ‘fun for me’. Parents face increasing pressures, with 34% of parents of 0-13s wishing they had more time to read to their children. Attitudes towards reading are also changing, with parents increasingly aligning their children’s reading with schoolwork rather than something fun to enjoy.
There’s much in here to unpick. We all know the wide-ranging benefits of reading for pleasure and the research that underpins this. However, many of the issues raised are being pointed towards parental attitudes to reading, and in turn, the blame in news reports and in the underbelly of social media comments, is directed toward parents suffering from socio-economic inequality, certain ethnic groups and others being blamed for society’s wider ills.
To remedy this, we need to centre children and childhood in policy. The curriculum, inspection and assessment system must stop rushing children through to unreasonably demanding expectations, give time for play and slow, deeply embedded learning. For children to connect with themselves, others and the world around them. This includes time and play spaces for outdoor learning, time to read and be read to and with, and time away from screens and technology. Reading has become faster; skimming, scanning and consuming content, rather than reading deeply; inferring, comprehending and empathising,
Society also needs to make time for parents to be present. So many families can’t make ends meet without the financial security of both parents working full time, making time they do have with their children scarce. Reading should be relaxed, social and pleasurable, with time to ponder and discuss, but so often the pressure and number of things to do in the little time parents have makes this a challenge.
If parents and children see reading more as a subject to learn, the curriculum and assessment system has created this. Books sent home for children in their earliest years of school are likely to be decodable texts or levelled readers. Whilst important for practising reading, these deliberately reductive texts are not going to be those that instil a love of books or make reading a pleasurable activity at home. If reading is seen as a chore, or worse still, if it becomes a battle to get through the ‘school reader’, parents and children will be put off the experience. Sharing rich stories, picturebooks, comics, graphic novels, poetry and information books together at home unfolds the wonder and potential of the reading experience, allowing children to develop tastes and preferences and creating connections above and beyond those seen between letters and sounds.
With a curriculum and assessment review underway, we must ensure reading for meaning and pleasure sits the centre of the curriculum experience. Yes, children can’t do this without knowledge and skills of how to read, but purpose and pleasure need to be centred to provide the will to carry on when things are challenging. This also requires investment in CPD for teachers, as well as the autonomy to respond to the needs of individual readers. We must also ensure that all schools have dedicated budgets for regularly improving stock of high-quality books that engage all readers.
In turn, communities should be supporting families with opportunities to connect and learn about the joys and challenges of parenting, child development and about family literacy, beyond the school gates. The tidal wave from the shift in name from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to the Department for Education and the closure of Sure Start centres is marked, with the ripples of impact still spreading.
Many comments on the report came from parents who do make time to read and who provide a range of books for their children at home, recognising the value of this. However, we must recognise the privilege of this. Not every parent has the disposable income to buy books from book shops, or even charity shops, as well as the luxury of time to read to and with their children, and not all local communities have the luxury of a well-stocked children’s library or the leisure time to visit these. With an increasing amount of children now living in poverty, we must make sure all children have access to books, rebuilding public libraries instead of closing them and investing in book gifting programmes like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, to ensure all children have a collection of books that are uniquely theirs.
The publishing industry must also play its part in allowing every child and family to see themselves in books, publishing books and supporting creators and publishing industry professionals that allow every child and family to see that reading is a place and space for them with books that speak to them authentically, as CLPE highlight so importantly in their Reflecting Realities research.
The blame doesn’t sit at the door of parents. This isn’t just a parenting, publishing, school, or education issue. It’s at the heart of the society that has been created with its ever-widening inequality gap. For the good of children, it’s up to all of us to see and accept each part of the problem, and to do what we can to remedy it together.
Charlotte Hacking is a teacher, Literacy Consultant and Educational Speaker. She co-authored the book The Balancing Act: An Evidence Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing, which is currently shortlisted for the UKLA Academic Book Award 2025, alongside Professor Dominic Wyse.
