As part of our wider survey on literacy attitudes and behaviours in early 2022, we asked more than 60,000 children and young people aged 8 to 18 about whether they read or write poetry.
The research found that over the past 12 years, there has been a steady increase in the number of children and young people who read poetry in their free time at least once a month. As in previous years, more children who receive free school meals (FSMs) than those who do not say that they read and write poetry. This year, we also found that significantly more children and young people who say that they read poetry also write poetry.
Key findings
Children and young people as readers of poetry:
- In 2022, 3 in 10 (28.0%) children and young people said that they read poetry in their free time at least once a month.
- A third (35.3%) more children and young people said that they read poetry at least once a month in 2022 compared with 2010 (increasing from 20.7% in 2010 to 28.0% in 2022).
- More girls than boys read poetry in their free time (31.6% vs. 20.4%).
- In line with our previous findings, more children and young people who receive free school meals (FSMs) say that they read poetry in their free time than those who don’t receive FSMs (31.9% vs. 24.6%).
- Children and young people who read poetry had higher reading engagement than those who do not read poetry. Compared with those who do not read poetry, more children who read poetry said that they enjoy reading (62.3% vs. 42.0%), read daily (37.7% vs. 24.3%) and see themselves as good readers (85.5% vs. 78.2%).
- Most poetry readers were motivated to read poetry to learn new words (67.6%), new things (65.8%) or about other people and cultures (51.8%).
- 1 in 2 (50.9%) children and young people who read poetry in their free time write poetry in their free time, compared with just 7.1% of children who don’t read poetry.
Children and young people as writers of poetry:
- Nearly 1 in 5 (18.5%) of children and young people said that they write poetry in their free time at least once a month.
- More girls than boys write poetry in their free time (22.0% vs. 14.3%).
- As with reading poetry, more children and young people who receive FSMs write poetry in their free time than their peers who do not receive FSMs (22.7% vs. 17.1%).
- Children and young people who write poetry had higher writing engagement. Compared with those who do not read poetry, twice as many said they enjoy writing (59.1% vs. 29.1%). More of those who wrote poetry also said that they wrote daily (27.9% vs. 15.6%) and saw themselves as good writers (80.4% vs. 66.7%).
- Most poetry writers said they wrote to express their creativity (74.0%) and imagination (67.8%), or to relax (57.4%). Around 1 in 3 said they wrote poetry to feel connected to the world (35.7%) or to support causes they care about (31.1%).
Overall, this report shows that, as well as providing an outlet for creativity, engagement with poetry is associated with positive literacy behaviours. Our findings also indicate that poetry is an important tool to express feelings and struggles, escape reality or make sense of the complex events going on in our world. As we look ahead to a period of processing and recovery in a post-pandemic society, we will continue to support schools to develop poetry writing for enjoyment practices with the radical view that every young person is a poet.