Reversing the decline
Laura Skinner, Marketing Project Director, Dukes Education, discusses the steps Dukes Education is taking to promote reading for pleasure
The latest Annual Literacy Survey conducted by the National Literacy Trust paints a troubling picture.
The 2025 results show a continuing decline in the number of children and young people who say they enjoy reading, reaching the lowest levels recorded in the past 20 years.
For parents and educators who understand the profound benefits of reading, these findings are deeply concerning. Reading is not merely about learning sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or vocabulary. It offers moments of calm in a busy, noisy world. It unlocks imagination, invites curiosity, and allows children to explore other lives, places, and possibilities from the safety of the page.
Now in its sixteenth year, the National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey explores children and young people’s literacy behaviours, attitudes and enjoyment. The survey of children and young people from ages five to 18 has become an annual occurrence conducted in hundreds of schools and settings across the UK. In 2025, the survey had 115,000 responses.
Only 1 in 3 children aged 8-18 say they enjoy reading in their free time — a 36% decrease since the survey began in 2005
The gender gap has widened, with boys reading significantly less than girls
<Just 15.8% of children receiving free school meals read daily
Fewer than 1 in 5 children read daily — a 20% decrease since 2005
Among 5-8-year-olds, daily reading has fallen to 44.5%, a 3.4% drop in just one year and a 9.1% decrease since 2019
‘ The decline in reading for enjoyment has coincided with the rapid rise of digital media’
When children step through a wardrobe into Narnia or set sail on an imagined ship, they engage in critical thinking and problem-solving. They predict outcomes, analyse motivations, witness conflict and resolution, and learn to navigate challenges in a safe space. Through stories, children develop empathy, emotional literacy, and confidence, particularly when they encounter characters who reflect their own experiences. Reading also supports self-reflection, emotional regulation, and connection — especially when stories are shared with others.
Beyond these emotional and social benefits, reading fosters creativity and abstract thinking. It encourages children to conceptualise ideas and make connections across contexts. These skills extend far beyond literacy, underpinning success
across the curriculum and forming the foundation of lifelong learning.
The decline in reading for enjoyment has coincided with the rapid rise of digital media. We live in a fast-paced world of constant stimulation. Smartphones, social media, streaming platforms, short-form video content, and now advances in artificial intelligence, all compete for children’s attention. Against this backdrop, it is increasingly difficult for the quiet magic of a book to hold its ground.
I see this challenge play out in my own home. The thirty-second dopamine hits of YouTube Shorts — high-tempo, endlessly swipeable content — are designed to grip attention instantly. If something does not engage within seconds, it is discarded. How does a teacher at the front of a classroom, let alone a book composed of black-and-white text, compete with this?
Books demand something different: patience, focus, and intellectual engagement. Their wonders are not immediately obvious. They must be unlocked slowly, through imagination and effort. In a world offering instant gratification, this can feel like a hard sell.
Children today have more choices than ever for how they spend their free time: television with thousands of on-demand options, computer games, social media, and increasingly structured schedules filled with homework and extracurricular activities. Books are competing in a crowded and noisy landscape.
Even in a household where reading is visibly valued, encouraging reading for pleasure can be challenging. My children grow up seeing me laugh out loud or wipe away tears behind the pages of a book or head off merrily to book club. Yet promoting reading within my own family is still a struggle.
My four-year-old delights in being read to at bedtime, and I hope to hold onto that ritual for as long as possible. My 10-year-old, however, comes home late from football practice exhausted and resistant to opening a book. My pre-teen would far rather be watching the latest television series or chatting with friends, motivated to read only by financial incentives linked to pocket money. Notably, her schoolbooks are issued digitally. While this supports efficiency and monitoring, I cannot help but mourn the loss of cracked spines and turned pages — and worry about yet more screen time.
This challenge is shared by educators everywhere, and it is one that Dukes Education is committed to addressing head-on. Across our schools and beyond, we are investing in initiatives that aim to inspire children and reconnect them with the joy of reading.
One such initiative was the first Dukes Education Festival of Stories, hosted at Eaton House The Manor. The event brought together storytelling, illustration, and imagination, with over 1,000 tickets sold to sessions led by some of the UK’s most loved children’s authors and illustrators. It was heartening to see families genuinely enjoying stories together, with feedback highlighting renewed enthusiasm for books.
Authors working with younger children proved especially popular, with Rachel Bright’s bestselling animal stories selling out. Interestingly, figures such as Rob Biddulph, known for his ‘Draw with Rob’ YouTube series during the pandemic, and MC Grammar, a former teacher who gained popularity online through rhyme and rhythm, were also in high demand. Their success perhaps offers clues as to how literature can align with the digital world while retaining depth and meaning. Due to its success, there is strong demand for the festival to return.
Dukes Education also proudly supports Poetry Together, founded by author and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, funded by the Dukes Foundation, and wonderfully supported by Her Majesty The Queen. Poetry Together aims to unite young and old through the shared joy of poetry, encouraging writing, memorisation, and recitation across generations.
Alongside the social benefits of intergenerational connection, Poetry Together has made a tangible impact on literacy. Our partners at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) note that poetry provides a crucial gateway for young readers and writers, supporting phonological awareness, confidence, and engagement while laying essential foundations for literacy.
Over the past six years, Poetry Together events have taken place in venues including the British Library and Central Hall Westminster in London, expanding to Manchester in 2025. Each event celebrates poetry through vibrant workshops led by award-winning poets and authors. The impact is consistently striking, with children leaving energised, empowered, and eager to write. One parent shared:
‘Despite his learning difficulties, Steven empowered our son to believe in his ideas. In a short time, he produced sentences he was truly proud of. Absolutely priceless.’
In 2025, we launched Poets on the Road, bringing award-winning poets into schools across the country for full days of workshops and performances. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, with schools reporting meaningful and lasting impact on students’ engagement with language.
Dukes Education schools are fortunate to offer well-stocked libraries, dedicated teachers, and rich extracurricular opportunities. Programmes such as Accelerated Reader, creative competitions, and World Book Day celebrations all play a role in motivating children to read in ways that resonate with their interests and personalities.
However, not all children have access to such environments. State school budgets have been severely constrained. CLPE research shows that 60% of classrooms have no budget for new books, and UK council spending on libraries fell by nearly £500 million between 2010 and 2024. This context makes charitable support vital.
The Dukes Foundation supports organisations such as the Children’s Book Project, which tackles book poverty by gifting pre-loved books to schools, food banks, and community groups. Through bursaries and partnerships, the Foundation also works to widen access to education for children from lower-income backgrounds.
Gyles Brandreth recently shared a report from the CEO of his publisher, Hachette, highlighting a global reading crisis. While the book market remains commercially stable, this appears to be driven by fewer people buying more books. The concern is clear: declining reading for pleasure disproportionately affects lower socio-economic groups, with serious implications for social mobility, equality, and future success.
Against this backdrop, 2026 has been designated the UK’s National Year of Reading. Led by the Department for Education and supported by over 60 partners, the ‘Go All In’ campaign aims to reconnect reading with everyday culture by starting with young people’s passions rather than pressure.
It is a sentiment Dukes Education wholeheartedly supports. Addressing the decline in reading will require collective effort, creativity, and sustained investment. We remain committed to fostering a love of literature — within our schools and beyond — because reading is not simply a skill. It is a gateway to imagination, opportunity, and a richer, more connected life. ■