Children’s and Young People’s Reading and Writing of Comedy in 2015

A third of children said in 2015 that they read comedy outside class; 13.0% said that they write comedy in their free time. The findings are based on responses from 24,972 8 to 16-year-olds who participated in the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey in November / December 2015.

More boys than girls read and write comedy outside class. While more pupils who receive free school meals than those who do not get meals say that they write comedy at least once a month outside class, there was no such difference in terms of reading comedy outside class.

In April 2016, the National Literacy Trust supported the BBC to launch Comedy Classroom – a comedy writing competition for pupils aged 13 to 15. Ahead of the launch, a few questions were included in the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey of children and young people to gather some general information on their comedy consumption in 2015.