Is 2024 a new low for UK reading statistics?

The National Literacy Trust’s research represents one of the most valuable sets of literacy statistics in academic memory. As well as a survey depth commonly in excess of 75,000, data sets like the Annual Literacy Survey and the ensuing Children and Young People’s…report series provide us with a fundamental understanding of the demographic on a level that we don’t often see outside of government survey patterns.

These reading statistics are deep, measured and accurate – which makes it all the more dispiriting that the most recent data release on youth literacy in the UK begins “2024 stands out for all the wrong reasons when it comes to children and young people’s reading”.

This blog explores the reasons behind a reading slide of troublesome proportions, a generation of infrequent readers, and how the long-term economic consequences of low reading and low literacy have the potential to become a national-scale problem.

Children and Young People’s Reading in 2024

Reading statistics from Gen Z and Gen Alpha are concerning. The National Literacy Trust’s Children and Young People’s Reading report tells us that…

📊 The percentage of 8-to 18-year-olds who report enjoying reading in their free time is at 34.6% (1 in 3), its lowest-ever recorded level.

📊 This is down from 58.6% in 2016 – a percentage decrease of 24 points over less than a decade.

📊 The number of 8-to 18-year-olds who read daily has fallen to 20.5% (1 in 5) in 2024, which is a percentage decrease of 7.5 in the last year.

📊 Reading daily drops off dramatically as learners get older, falling from 47.9% in the 5 – 8 age bracket to only 14.8% in the 14 – 16 age bracket. There’s a mild recovery, up to 18.9% in the college-age (16 – 18) bracket, but these are still the lowest levels ever recorded by the National Literacy Trust.

📊 And older boys’ reading for pleasure is in crisis: 43.0% of boys aged 5 – 8 report reading daily (for comparison, ♀ = 52.7%), but only 17.5% of boys aged 8 – 18 do (for comparison, ♀ = 23.2%).

📊 And once again, we get the highest levels of reported reading enjoyment from those who had higher average (mean) standardised reading scores than those who had low ones, likely meaning for so many readers, it’s unsupported reading skills that represent one of the largest barriers to reading for pleasure. 

Seismic and unprecedented shifts in reading data

The past decade represents a seismic shift in reading patterns, where reading for pleasure, despite all its benefits, is coming in at a historic, catastrophic low.

Between 2005 and 2016 we became used to seeing the percentage of children and young people reporting to enjoy reading in the mid-50s, and whilst fluctuating by a point or two, that decile held relatively constant. That changed in 2017, and since we’ve seen a year-on-year drop of worrisome proportions – around 4% per annum, excepting a small uptick during national lockdown, as we arrive at 2024’s 34.6%.

The UK’s figures are lower than we’d expect to see on a world scale. Although there’s been a decline in OECD countries’ reading for pleasure since 2000, the UK is still outstripped by…

● The US: A 2023 report by publisher Scholastic found that 58% of children and young people enjoyed reading in their free time.

● Canada: Research by BookNet Canada revealed that 44% of children aged 6 to 17 read for pleasure once a week in 2023.

● Germany: Data from Stiftung Lesen in 2023 reported that 45% of children aged 6 to 13 read for pleasure at least once a week.

So why is this downturn happening – and why are we so concerned?

We’ll tackle the second part of the question first. Reading for pleasure does have a number of mental health benefits – but it’s more complicated than that.

The ability to read for pleasure is also a great way to further develop reading confidence and reading independence. Learners need a measure of these skills in order to begin to read for pleasure, but as they do it they further hone the skills ready for the next challenge. It’s not just about being able to curl up and enjoy a book or magazine after school – when readers read under their own steam, they discover their own interests, become better communicators, and supplement reading skills gained in the classroom, creating strong readers who can tackle challenging texts. 

As to why we’re seeing reading statistics fall so swiftly and dramatically, there are a number of theories.

Factors impacting the shift in reading statistics in 2024

The rise of social media

Social media plays a large part in this new normal for reading statistics. The latest Children’s Media Lives Report from Ofcom indicates that many children and young people are spending between 6 and 8 hours a day on social media. This figure is a huge increase on a decade ago, when children and young people were spending about 12 hours a week online across all websites and platforms.

Such a large uptick in time spent on one leisure activity has the potential to swallow up time spent on others (such as reading); and especially in the case of short-form video content platforms, these sites are often designed around core algorithms that promote ongoing use. The shadow side to this is addiction: many children and young people struggle to put social media down, or feel compelled to spend as much free time as possible on these platforms due to social media FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Are there just fewer confident readers?

Between 2023 and 2024, KS2 English higher standard passes fell by 1%, which is sharp, but not entirely dramatic. The same applies at GCSE, where there has been a shift downward in some categories of reading assessment during recent exam seasons – but not enough to challenge a previous, stable trend in upward progress across the 2000s and early 2010s. So Gen Z’s reading skills likely aren’t having that much of an impact on their decision not to read.

…But that might change when it comes to Gen Alpha.

Gen Alpha’s tablet use in early childhood, and high social media hours from as young as 6 or 7 mean that they’re developing and learning in a different way to the generations before them. We don’t yet know how this is going to impact them in a long-term cognitive way, but early research shows that they might struggle with things like emotional regulation, which can impact attitudes to learning, concentration, and the ability to ask for help.

The rising cost of reading 

Books cost money – and although they’re important, when finances are tight, fresh reading materials are understandably quite low-down on the household priority list.

Free School Meal (FSM) status is a commonly used proxy measure for socioeconomic disadvantagein reading statistics. If we use this measure to identify households who may be experiencing the highest degree of financial struggle due to the increasing cost of living, we can see that FSM-status readers have experienced almost double the downturn of their non-FSM peers in reading enjoyment from the period from 2023 to 2024.

An attitude shift towards humanities and reading culture

We also know that opinions on the humanities are shifting in a divisive direction. After the recession, the UK press voiced queries about the viability of humanities and liberal arts choices at degree level, and whether they were a worthwhile investment in terms of employability. This developed into a moral panic over ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ – humanities degrees that have lower-than-average end-employment rates or no solid career destination.

The ensuing low symbolic capital of these degrees and government focus on STEM led to a large increase in STEM degree choices, perceived as more ‘employable’, high-income and feeding into growing industries – despite the average salary of a UK humanities graduate being £35,360 and the average salary of a UK STEM graduate coming in at less than three thousand pounds higher, at £38,272.

So it stands to reason that with an increased focus on STEM, children and young people’s reading statistics might take a hit. It’s a double deficit: reading may no longer be perceived to be as important as it was when technology and science skills take precedence in a higher education and careers narrative, and the humanities subjects that traditionally encourage extended reading are being studied by fewer students from Year 10 onward.

Changing generational leisure patterns

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have less unstructured leisure time than previous generations. School homework burdens have increased over time, and school hours are longer than those experienced by Millennials and Gen X-ers, so there’s simply less time for students to read. For very young learners who need parental support to read for pleasure, this will have been impacted by a shift in working patterns that’s seen more parents return to work soon after having children.

The way that children and young people have the option to spend that dwindling leisure time has changed, too. Previously, it was comparatively rare for children to have access to personal media technologies, but now many have access to a number of devices – meaning that reading is in competition with many more activities than in the early 2000s.

So what happens when the readers in these classrooms transition into work?

We know that a lack of reading for pleasure produces readers whose skills aren’t as developed as we’d like, and that’s a problem when the job market expects highly literate candidates. Low reading confidence and underdeveloped skills might result in learners struggling to achieve their career goals. The less tangible elements are important too: reading for pleasure shapes learners’ creativity and their empathy response, which are not only vital in developing well-rounded personalities but are the foundation of the soft skills that employers value so highly.

If the trend continues, we may be looking at a generational employment issue, communication and empathy problems, and risk Gen Z and Gen Alpha setting a weak reading example when they have children of their own.

We need to find a way to reduce screen time… without compromising reading support.

Our analysis puts the small screen at the centre of the drop-off in at-home reading statistics. Limiting access, then, provides some response to boost learners’ capacity for reading for pleasure – but this might have some knock-on effects when these devices are the ones delivering reading support.

Millions of students look to eReaders on tablets and phones to support them through the reading process, whether they’re in class or reading at home. Paper books come with no support rails like dictionaries or text-to-speech – but screened reading a situation rife with distractions, too, as it’s easy to transition from reading to scrolling and become distracted.

This is where handheld reading support

can really come into its own.

Devices like text-to-speech reading pens can provide learners with access to books and reading for pleasure in a way that doesn’t require their connection with a screened device, reducing their screentime hours without ever compromising the degree of reading support that they receive. They can be the difference between a learner who’s still getting to grips with English or navigating reading skill gaps being able to read independently, and not feeling confident enough to read at all.

And most crucially, handheld reading tools like a reading pen break a student with reading needs’ dependence on a screen to facilitate reading. Switching to distraction-free paper books can feel like a real struggle when students need reading support, but a reading pen provides that support in a structured, needs-only way – meaning that there are no distracting apps and messages in play to disrupt reading or derail the task at hand. Users simply scan the page with the tip of the pen to hear it read aloud, and navigate through simple menus to find dictionary definitions.

So when we're effecting a reading rescue,

reading pens offer teachers and parents a vital key.

The National Literacy Trust’s most recent reading statistics demonstrate that it’s likely that swift action on screen time is required to preserve reading for pleasure. We have to make sure that the door to those skill gains, mental health benefits, and lifelong reading habits remains open for Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and the generations that come after them.

To learn more about reading pens— and to kickstart a new reading journey by finding out which kind works for you— head on over to our Pen Guide Quiz, where you’ll be able to find all of our options for handheld reading support in one convenient place. Happy reading!