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Annual Research Shows Fewer Pre-School Children Are Being Read To

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Annual research has revealed that the number of pre-school children being read to daily has dropped from seven out of ten (69%) to just over half (51%) over the past five years.

Egmont co-funds Nielsen Book Research’s annual Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer survey into the reading habits of UK children which found that 58% of parents of 3-4-year-olds were stopped from reading to their children by a number of obstacles, the greatest being the struggle to find energy at the end of the day (19%), as well as the child’s preference to do other things (16%). This correlates with an uptake in toddlers watching online video content daily (up by almost one fifth between 2013-2017).

Whilst daily reading for pleasure among 0-17s was up by 4% year-on-year, with three in ten 0-17-year-olds doing so, Egmont stressed that this steep decline in pre-schoolers reading and being read to signalled a significant threat to child development, with potential long-term social impact.

The data, which was presented by Egmont to industry peers at a conference yesterday, also revealed that one in five (21%) parents of children in the 3-4 age group don’t feel comfortable in bookshops, and nearly half (46%) are overwhelmed by the choice of children’s books, acting as further barriers to raising children who enjoy reading. Further research by Egmont also revealed that parents often felt anxious about taking disruptive toddlers into a bookshop or library.

The survey also showed that three in five (61%) parents with children in this age group worry about the amount of time their children spend in front of a screen.

“We know that parents are increasingly concerned about screen time, especially the popularity of YouTube amongst young children. Our research tells us we need to give children a real range of print alternatives to choose from: whether that’s a magazine, a graphic novel, a comic or a picture book. A sense of agency, and being given the freedom to pick their own reading material, is far more effective in creating life-long readers than a strict reading list.”

Egmont has been working with retailers on a number of projects to explore how to increase the numbers of children being read to and reading for themselves, and how to reach those families who buy the smallest proportion of books a year: 70% of the UK population who buy children’s books – around 11.2 million people – only buy between 1-5 children’s books a year.

 

The Power Of Pictures

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The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) has been awarded funding from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) as part of the Learning about Culture programme to test the impact of the Power of Pictures on primary pupils’ achievement and other key skills. This funding will enable CLPE to build on the success of an earlier and smaller trial of the Power of Pictures, bringing the project to a further 1,800 nine and ten year olds.

 Teachers and their pupils will work with author-illustrators to learn how to use picturebooks to boost reading and writing skills. Over three days of training, they will develop specific techniques to use illustration to support children’s reading comprehension and creative writing.

The key findings from a previous Power of Pictures project evaluated by Dr Sue Horner and Janet White showed promise in the following areas:

·       Drawing in preparation for or during creative writing leads to improvement in writing, particularly for EAL children and for boys who are reluctant writers

·       Picturebooks shouldn’t be limited to the early years of schooling but have the potential to improve literacy throughout the primary school

·       Working alongside authors and illustrators helps teachers to understand the writing process and improves the teaching of writing

 The original project research summary and evaluation report can be viewed here.

The Power of Pictures project was originally devised by CLPE in partnership with author/illustrator Ed Vere who said: “This groundbreaking project has immense potential to highlight the powerful creative link between drawing and writing, supporting teachers to understand the craft of picturebook creation as well as showing how visual literacy can harness the imagination and inspire the creative writing process.”

Former Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell is a firm supporter of the Power of Pictures: “The Power of Pictures has shown how important drawing is for creating a story and how drawing can particularly benefit those children who struggle to find their voice. I am thrilled that thousands of children will now have the chance to explore the links between drawing and writing.”

CLPE Chief Executive, Louise Johns-Shepherd said: “We are delighted that CLPE has been selected to be part of this trial and that we will be able to bring the innovative and creative Power of Pictures work to more children in more schools. We know how important it is to help children develop an understanding of the craft of writing and this project will enable us to support teachers to engage meaningfully with professional authors and their processes. ”

Only children’s books with humans have moral impact

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Undercutting the ageless tradition of sugaring ethical lessons with endearing animals, new research suggests human protagonists are needed to change behaviour…

The study, which has just been published in the journal Developmental Science, found that those children who were read the book with human characters became more generous, while “in contrast, there was no difference in generosity between children who read the book with anthropomorphised animal characters and the control book; both groups showed a decrease in sharing behaviour,” they write.

The report itself concludes:

In conclusion, the present study revealed that books with proso-
cial themes have immediate effects in promoting children’s real- world
prosocial behaviors as long as the story characters are humans or can
be construed as humans. Further, our study adds to the growing body
of research on how picture books can best support children’s learning.
Our findings are consistent with past studies that show that children
are more likely to transfer knowledge learned from realistic stories to
therealworldthanfromfantasticstories(Ganeaetal.,2014;Richert
etal.,2009;Richert&Smith,2011;Walkeretal.,2015).Thisisnotto
say that fantastical books are not useful for learning. Certainly, chil-
dren may find such books enjoyable and entertaining, and thus hearing
such types of stories can instill the love of literature in them. Further,
engaging children’s imagination is important for their socio- cognitive
development, and children clearly enjoy immersing themselves in
hypothetical worlds early in development (Harris, 2000). However, the
findings from our study and existing studies taken together suggest
that for children at a very young age fantastical stories may not be as
effective for teaching real- world knowledge or real- life social behav-
iors as realistic ones.

Celebrating Reading for Enjoyment – Findings from our Annual Literacy Survey 2016

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Celebrating Reading for Enjoyment – Findings from our Annual Literacy Survey 2016

Whether or not children and young people enjoy reading has been a focus of recent research and policy, and evidence is now accumulating that shows that reading enjoyment is beneficial not only for reading outcomes but also for wider learning. 

Reading for enjoyment is not only at the heart of our programmes, but it is also a central element of our research activities. This report pulls together what our evidence tells us about reading enjoyment.

Key findings, based on data from 42,406 pupils aged 8 to 18, include:

  • 1 child in 4 in 2016 said that they enjoy reading very much, with another 1 child in 3 saying that they enjoy reading quite a lot. Overall, nearly 6 children in 10 (58.6%) say that they enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot.
  • While enjoyment levels had been rather stable between 2005 and 2012, they have been rising steadily since 2013, and in 2016 we recorded the highest percentage of reading enjoyment levels. Levels in 2016 were 14% higher than they were in 2005.
  • Children who enjoy reading are more likely to do better at reading than their peers who don’t enjoy it. At age 14, children who enjoy reading have an average reading age of 15.3 years, while those who don’t enjoy reading have an average reading age of just 12 years, a difference of 3.3 years.
  • Nearly twice as many children aged 8 to 11 than those aged 14 to 16 said that they enjoy reading (77.6% vs. 43.8%).

Download this file

via Celebrating Reading for Enjoyment – Findings from our Annual Literacy Survey 2016 | National Literacy Trust.

What Kids Are Reading 2015

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What an interesting report this is!


Coverage in the media yesterday made much of the fact that classic fantasy (Tolkien) has fallen out of favour amongst older readers and been displaced by ‘dark dystopia’.
But far more compelling is the data that shows how, in general, this demographic is not being challenged by their reading choices.

Children in the earlier part of their time at primary school are being stretched beyond what would be expected. Children are stretched by a smaller margin each year until Years 4 and 5, where they read at a level broadly equivalent to what would be expected. From Year 6 onwards, children are significantly under-challenged by their chosen reading material.

graph01

In her analysis of the report, The Guardian’s Alison Flood pointed out:

Apart from Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo, in 17th place, every single title in primary-school children’s most-read list was by a male author, while in secondary schools, two Hunger Games titles by Collins, in fourth and 12th place, were the only books by female writers.

The full report is available for download:
http://whatkidsarereading.co.uk/2015/download-the-full-report-2015/

The report, which is produced annually, is written by Keith Topping, Professor of Education at Dundee University, and is published by Renaissance Learning, one of whose products is Accelerated Reader.

Nearly three quarters of young people prefer print, according to Voxburner research

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The 16-24 generation is still firmly in favour of print books, new research shows, with 73% saying they prefer print over digital or audio formats.

Exclusive research conducted by Voxburner for The Bookseller showed that while nearly three-quarters of young people said they prefer the print form, only 27%  prefer e-books and 31% said they don’t buy e-books at all.

The survey questioned more than 900 young people in the UK about their book habits.
Luke Mitchell, director of Voxburner, said the research found people in the 16-24 age group think e-books are too expensive. “They told us they like to touch books and see the creases in the spine, but for bargain-driven young people the conversion to e-books will most likely be determined by price,” he said. “In our research, 70% said that £6.99 was a reasonable price to pay for a paperback but only 10% were prepared to pay the same for an e-book.”

When it comes to paperbacks, 37% of young people said they would pay £5.00-£7.00 and 35% said they would pay £3.00-£5.00. However, they are less willing to pay as much for e-books, with 43% saying they should cost less than £3.00

via Nearly three quarters of young people prefer print | The Bookseller.

On children, reading and digital

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from the end of a thoughtful piece on digital reading on the Barrington Stoke blog where we learn that tey will be releasing a “small number” of “locked format” digtal titles next month:

I think the lessons to be learned are:

when it comes to literacy, we need to be wise to huge commercial interests and personal hobbyhorses, put these aside and see what actually works. It’s great that Anne Mangen et al are producing some empirical data.
deep down, most of us know what books are, and what reading is, and we know that story apps might be great, but they’re not a cornerstone in developing literacy.
there’s nothing better than human interaction when it comes to learning to read, and to loving to read.
And now for a volte-face of sorts: in line with (1) above we will be letting Barrington Stoke readers try our books in digi format when we release a small number of titles in a special app in October. The books will be in a locked format available for iPads and Android tablets, and will replicate in a relatively locked format the design of our own books, but with a couple of added accessibility tools. More anon…

via On children, reading and digital | Barrington Stoke.

Let boys be boys when it comes to books

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Let boys be boys, says Rosemary Goring in The Herald, in a piece that is a commentary on Jonathan Emmett’s views on the dominance of women amongst the gatekeeper’s of children’s books.

ACHUKA will post a link to Emmett’s detailed research as published on his blog tomorrow, together with a brief viewpoint of our own.

With hindsight, today’s lack of gutsy books for boys may even come to be seen as part of a losing battle to rewire the male brain. Since that is neither desirable, nor possible, maybe it’s time to pump a bit of boyish bad taste and irreverence into children’s books, and see the pages come alive, and their readers too.

via Let boys be boys when it comes to books | Herald Scotland.

One-in-four children think golden goose lays Easter eggs

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New research reveals decline in 8-15 year-olds’ religious knowledge of Easter:

Children aged eight to fifteen were asked a series of questions to test their knowledge of the Bible story connected to Easter.
As well as showing that many do not know the meaning behind the traditional celebrations, the findings reveal that in the Bible story connected to Easter, one in four (28 per cent) thinks God may tell the tale of the hare and the tortoise and almost a third (29 per cent) did not know that God raises Jesus from the dead.
One in eight children (13 per cent) thinks Jesus tells his followers the 10 Commandments.
Three in four (72 per cent) think Jesus may feed 5,000 people with loaves and fishes and two in three (69 per cent) think Jesus may walk on water.
Moreover, one in five (20 per cent) does not know that Judas was the friend who betrayed Jesus and more than half (56 per cent) do not know that Judas proves who Jesus is by kissing him.

via One-in-four children think golden goose lays Easter eggs – Telegraph.