Why Reading really matters

Readathon news

The greatest positive that we’ve drawn from this survey is that children definitely want to read, and teachers want to spur their interest in doing so. Readathon plays a key role in facilitating this process. The challenge is to focus on firing children’s interest rather than creating unnecessary hurdles over the selection of the reading matter.

Brough Girling, Readathon Founder

Readathon Research

Readathon recently conducted a research project to find out what educational professionals think about children's reading habits and the important role recreational reading can play in young people's lives. Click on the links below to read our reports.

Teachers, pupils, and reading because you want to

Pupils’ reading in the digital world

Recreational reading and schools – what educators think

Show me a child that learns for him or herself where reading for recreation can lead to, and I’ll show you an adult who’ll benefit throughout their life from that initial discovery.

Brough Girling, Readathon Founder

Why Reading really matters

Is literacy improving? Do pupils read more, or less, than they used to? Print vs. digital – where do teachers stand?

Readathon recently undertook a research project in which we asked teachers, librarians, literacy co-coordinators, heads, and other educational professionals about literacy, recreational reading, digital devices, pressure on schools and more. We learned a lot. Here are some of the highlights revealed by the Readathon research reports:

• Over 90% of respondents welcome anything that will help them motivate pupils to decide to read. And it is not just about employment prospects and exam success - with 96.5% believing ‘reading what they want’ helps children develop as people.

• Neither the recreational reading content nor its format is considered as important as it once was; with many teachers welcoming anything to encourage the activity: including comics (89.5%); DVDs etc. (55.2%), and even mobile ‘phones (31.9%).

• With reading via the internet (71.8%) now more likely to be listed than newspapers (69.7%), teachers are fully alert to the positive attributes of digital media. Almost two-thirds of respondents approved of digital reading devices and 71.6% are expecting digital books to become ‘core’ in future.

• Whilst most respondents felt that literacy standards had improved or had been maintained in their own classrooms over the past ten years (64.9%), there was a widespread belief that the same was not true nationwide (46.6% said reading skills have declined).

• One disturbing issue identified by the Readathon survey is the time available during school-hours for reading for pleasure, perhaps due to pressures on the overall curriculum. 54% of teachers felt that there is little time for pupils to read for pleasure, although only 11.5% cited lack of support from within the school itself to encourage the activity.