Publisher Farshore call on parents and carers to champion reading for pleasure

A new report from publisher Farshore, a division of Harper Collins UK, has revealed that reading for pleasure is on the decline, with one in five children aged between 0-17 not partaking at all in 2021. Whilst reading is a large part of the school curriculum, the benefits of simply reading for pleasure are not widely known.

Reading for pleasure helps to nurture children and helps their progression – in fact, progress in vocabulary, spelling and maths is four times greater if parents read daily than if the parents have a degree. Reading for pleasure also helps to maintain good mental health, with 76% of children who report high mental wellbeing thinking positively about reading. Reading can be a fantastic form of escapism, and children used it as a coping mechanism throughout the pandemic, with 48% of children preferring to read fiction to escape everyday stresses.

The Reading for Pleasure and Purpose report, published by Farshore, has shown that children are increasingly turning away from books for enjoyment. Almost one fifth (20%) of parents say that their child prefers to do something else before bed than reading, and 64% of those aged under 17 would rather watch TV, play video games, or go online than read books. With the numbers declining year-on-year, just a quarter of children now read daily or nearly every day, compared to 38% in 2012. 

Ros spoke to Alison David, consumer insight director at Farshore.

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