The National Literacy Trust is calling for increased support for schools to keep the momentum going after a modest upturn in children and young people’s writing enjoyment and daily writing habits.
After reaching a 15-year low in 2025, this year’s Annual Literacy Survey has revealed that some progress being made but there is still a lot of work to do.
Key research findings
Our 2026 Annual Literacy Survey of 125,375 UK children and young people aged 5 to 18 revealed that:
- Just under 3 in 10 (28.7%) of those aged 8 to 18 said they enjoy writing in their free time (vs 26.6% in 2025).
- 1 in 9 (11.9%) said they write something daily in their free time (vs 10.4% in 2025).
Both writing enjoyment and daily writing habits are still significantly lower than they need to be, despite the overall upturn.
Which groups of children are the most impacted?
- More children in receipt of free school meals, compared to those who aren’t, say they enjoy writing (32.0% vs 27.5%) and write daily (15.1% vs 10.7%) in their free time.
- More girls than boys enjoyed writing (34.9% vs 21.1%) and wrote something daily (14.1% vs 9.1%) in their free time. Girls’ enjoyment of writing rose at a greater rate than boys', resulting in a widening of the writing enjoyment gender gap.
- Despite those aged 14 to 16 reporting the greatest year-on-year improvements in writing enjoyment (from 21.4% in 2025 to 25.0% in 2026), teenagers continued to have the lowest levels of writing enjoyment across all age groups.
What are children and young people writing?
Our research found that children and young people are more likely to engage with:
- On paper: diary or journal writing (20% vs 6.8% on screens), freewriting (18% vs 11.8%) and letters (17.4% vs 8.5%);
- On screens: song lyrics (16.9% vs 9.1% on paper), scripts (11.7% vs 5.3%) and reviews (11.3% vs 4.4%); and
- Screen-based formats: messages on video games (68.2%) and personal or direct messages (37.6%).
Paper is playing a key-role in self-expression through writing, whereas digital formats are supporting communication-based writing.
These format insights show that writing is closely tied to communication, self reflection and creativity for children.
What are we doing to keep the momentum going?
To embed writing most strongly in children and young people’s lives, our recent research indicates that writing must be relevant, meaningful and supported by people around them.
We are calling for writing for enjoyment pedagogy to be a central part of the government's curriculum and assessment reforms, for time and opportunities for meaningful writing to be protected in schools and for greater investment in teacher development to boost writing engagement.
“Writing is more than just a skill young people need to do well at school – it is a powerful tool for thinking, communicating and self-expression. Every young person is a writer. And to help them tell their stories, what we’re seeing through our work in schools and communities is that we must create more opportunities for them to explore writing in all its forms, building their confidence, enabling them to engage with a digital-first world and helping them see it as a valuable, relevant and fun part of their everyday lives.”
Jonathan Douglas CBE, Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust
Our writing work in schools is built on our evidence-based three-pillar approach to improving writing engagement:
- Inspiring writing through memorable experiences;
- Modelling real writing with professional writers; and
- Providing a real audience and purpose for writing.
New evidence, also published by us today, indicates that this approach is empowering more children and young people - particularly those who are the least engaged with writing - to improve their writing confidence (58%), enjoyment (33% in free time; 42% in school) and frequency (32%).
Resources to support children's writing
Resources for teachers
- NEW: Research into Practice: Directly linked to the latest research, this resources includes practical activities for the classroom (for premium National Literacy Trust members).
- NEW: Write Like A Writer: Flexible ideas to support primary and secondary pupils in developing confidence, curiosity and enjoyment in writing.
- Writing for Enjoyment - ideas, activities and writing prompts: Ideas, games and prompts to inspire writing for pleasure for primary and secondary phases.
Activities for families
Our Words for Life website has a range of at-home activities to inspire your child's writing, poetry and creativity.