Summary
A National Literacy Trust (NLT) survey reveals that children’s enjoyment of reading is at its lowest in 19 years, with only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds saying they enjoy reading in their free time.
This marks an 8.8 percentage point drop from last year, part of a declining trend since 2016.
Reading frequency has also hit a historic low, and a significant gender gap persists, with only 28.2% of boys versus 40.5% of girls enjoying reading.
The NLT calls for a government taskforce to address these declines, warning that “the futures of a generation are being put at risk.”
I know personally my enjoyment of reading dropped like a rock in my tweens & teens. Too much schoolwork and over analyzing of books in school got me burned out. I made up for it in my late 20s-30s though.
My daughter has been better so far in this regard, but now that she’s in high school I can tell she’s getting closer to mirroring my feelings. She’s switched to Manga/graphic novels instead of long form novels and that’s helped a bit, but we’ll see if that keeps up in the years to come.
Teenage years are stressful, there’s plenty to hope for that it’ll pass. Look for solid page turners tuned to her interests and drop a copy at the right moment later on.
I get the over analyzing thing, but I think that really comes down to the style of teaching. I had some good teachers and bad teacher, teachers, and with a good teacher teachers, I did enjoy literary analysis as long as it didn’t get too bogged down in the analysis and two departed from actually enjoying the peace of literature we were analyzing.
And I’m particularly glad that I still have those skills for analysis as an adult.