This report explores how parents and children engage with news, based on a survey of 1,000 UK parents of children aged 5 to 18 conducted by One Poll of behalf of the National Literacy Trust.
The research was designed to support and inform the work of NewsWise, a news literacy programme developed by The Guardian Foundation, the National Literacy Trust and the PSHE Association, and funded by Google, to create a generation of news literate children.
This report shows that:
- Half of parents are worried about the impact of fake news and misinformation on their children’s lives (50%) and don’t think their children have the skills they need to spot it (52%)
- 2 in 5 parents (40%) admitted to falling for fake news themselves
- 2 in 5 parents (39%) never watch, listen to or read news with their child at home and 1 in 5 (21%) never talk to their child about news
- Parents from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to never watch, listen to or read news with their children (45% vs 37%) and to believe their children don’t have the skills to spot fake news (52% vs 39%) than parents from more advantaged backgrounds
- Half of parents (55%) want more support to help their children understand news
This research aims to inform our ongoing work in the area of strengthening children’s critical literacy skills by exploring UK parents’ and carers’ attitudes, behaviours, confidence and needs around supporting children’s news literacy.