Listen: bedtime stories at risk

As many as 82% of parents say that their children’s screen time has increased during lockdown, and 30% say that their children are having an extra four hours or more of non-school related screen time per day.

However, researchers say children who use screens for more than 2 hours a day were more likely to have behavioral problems and a poorer attention span, than those who used screens for 30 minutes or less. Teachers seem to agree, with 7% claiming modern technologies were creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.

This decreasing attention span is in line with our children’s daily reading levels that currently stand at the lowest ever recorded. Just 25% of children saying they read daily in their free time. This could be having an impact on their education as children who read daily in their free time are twice as likely to read above the level expected for their age than children who don’t read daily (37.6% vs 14.2%).

Not only are our children reading less but their enjoyment of reading is also wavering. Reading enjoyment levels are at their lowest since 2013 and this too has an influence on their reading ability, with young people who enjoy reading three times more likely to read above the level expected for their age.

Aston spoke to Tom Matthews from In The Book to discuss the research in further detail.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash