Reading enjoyment and daily reading among children and young people are now at their lowest levels in over 20 years.
Addressing this decline is a central ambition of the National Year of Reading, which has identified teenagers, and teenage boys in particular, as a priority group for renewed focus and support.
Based on responses from more than 80,000 young people aged 11 to 16, alongside over 46,000 written comments in which teenagers describe their experiences of reading in their own words, the report explores how reading enjoyment and frequency change during adolescence.
With a particular focus on teenage boys, it explores what young people value about reading and what makes a reading habit harder to maintain.
Key findings
- The steepest declines in children and young people’s reading engagement occur during early adolescence. While 1 in 2 (46.9%) children aged 8 to 11 enjoy reading, this decreases to 3 in 10 (29.5%) of those aged 11 to 14, while daily reading more than halves over the same period.
- Reading enjoyment declines for both boys and girls in early adolescence, however, girls show signs of recovery as older teenagers, whereas boys’ engagement remains persistently low. By the age of 14 to 16, just 1 in 5 (18.8%) boys say they enjoy reading, compared with 2 in 5 (37.7%) girls.
- Despite declining engagement with reading, many teenagers continue to value the benefits of reading for learning, enjoyment and wellbeing. As one young person put it: “I like reading so much because it’s so relaxing and peaceful. I get to escape reality and go into another world when really into a book. It also helps me calm down when angry, stressed or sad.”
- Lower engagement is rarely about rejecting reading altogether. Teenagers often described reading as enjoyable, calming or valuable, but easily displaced by competing pressures, with comments including: “No time, and even if I do then I don’t have the energy nor motivation to read when other options are more convenient and actively engaging. When I find a book I love I demolish it within days though, 300 pages a day.”
Together, these findings challenge the idea that teenagers simply lose interest in reading. Instead, reading often becomes harder to sustain as routines weaken and demands increase.
This report provides evidence to inform policy, practice and programmes aimed at sustaining reading engagement during the teenage years.