A child who can read but chooses not to is a particular kind of problem. The mechanics are in place, the comprehension is there, and the books still stay shut. In 2025 that describes a growing share of children. Only 32.7% of 8- to 18-year-olds in the UK told the National Literacy Trust they enjoyed reading in their free time, the lowest figure in the twenty years the survey has run. Reading for pleasure, the thing that turns a competent decoder into a fluent and knowledgeable adult, is in retreat.
A twenty-year low
The National Literacy Trust's 2025 report drew on almost 115,000 responses from children aged 5 to 18. Enjoyment of reading has fallen by 36% since the survey began in 2005, when around half of children said they read for pleasure. Daily reading has fallen too: fewer than one in five children (18.7%) now reads something every day in their own time, again the lowest level recorded. The sharpest drops over the past year were among primary-aged children and among boys aged 11 to 16.
The timing of the steepest falls matters. The years from 8 to 16 are when most children either settle into reading as a habit or let it go. A boy who stops reading at 11 rarely starts again at 15 of his own accord. The window is narrow, and it is closing for a large group of children.
Why reading for pleasure matters more than it looks
The instinct is to treat reading for pleasure as a nice extra, the reward once the real work of phonics and comprehension is done. The evidence points the other way. Drawing on around 6,000 children in the 1970 British Cohort Study, Alice Sullivan and Matt Brown found that children who read for pleasure made more progress in vocabulary, spelling and even mathematics between the ages of 10 and 16 than those who rarely read. The effect on vocabulary was strongest, but it reached across subjects, and it was larger than the effect of having a well-educated parent.
That last point is the one to sit with. A habit a family can build at home outweighed a fixed advantage many families do not have. International data tells the same story: across the OECD's PISA assessments, reading enjoyment tracks reading achievement closely, and the long decline in one has moved in step with a decline in the other. Children who read widely arrive at every other subject with the vocabulary and background knowledge to understand it. The book is doing more than entertaining.
What builds a reader
Three conditions do most of the work, and none of them is a programme. The first is choice. Children read more, and enjoy it more, when they pick the book, including the comic, the football annual, the series that no adult would have chosen for them. Reading for pleasure stops being pleasure the moment it becomes another thing to be tested on.
The second is being read aloud to, well past the age it feels necessary. Studies using PIRLS and PISA data link reading aloud at home to stronger reading later, at primary and secondary level alike. A child who is read to hears sentences more complex than they could yet read alone, and learns that a story is worth sitting still for. The third is example. Children who see the adults around them reading, on paper or on a screen, absorb the idea that reading is something people choose to do, not a school task that ends at the gate.
At home and at school
For families, the practical version is undramatic. Keep books in reach, let the child choose, keep reading aloud, and protect a quiet ten minutes that competes with the screen rather than losing to it. None of this requires a literacy expert, and all of it works better than nagging.
Schools carry the other half. At ISJ, where children follow the English National Curriculum from the Early Years, the aim is the same one every good school shares: not children who can read, but children who want to. That means time in the timetable for reading that is not assessed, teachers who talk about what they are reading, and a steady supply of books a child might love. Much of the habit, though, is built at home. Our guide to how parents shape learning goes further on the everyday routines that make the largest difference.