Children’s recreational reading is uneven across age groups, genders and settings. In the National Literacy Trust’s 2024 UK survey, 34.6% of children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time, while 20.5% said they read something daily in their free time. These figures come from fieldwork conducted from January 3 to March 14, 2024, and describe reported attitudes and behaviour rather than a forecast.
Contents
- Current levels of recreational reading
- How reading changes with age
- Gender, socioeconomic and regional differences
- What children read and how they access it
- Home, family, school and library conditions
- Recreational reading and reading outcomes
Current levels of recreational reading
The 2024 UK results show a substantial difference between reading enjoyment and daily reading. Among 8- to 18-year-olds, 34.6% enjoyed reading in their free time, but only 20.5% reported reading something daily in their free time. For comparison, 40.5% said they enjoyed reading at school. The National Literacy Trust reports that the 34.6% free-time enjoyment figure was the lowest recorded for this age range since its series began in 2005. The series’ highest recorded level was 58.6% in 2016. Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2024 survey.
The recent movement was also negative. Free-time reading enjoyment fell 8.8 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, and the share reading daily in their free time fell 7.5 percentage points over the same period. Those are changes reported for the UK 8- to 18 population; they should not be treated as a measurement of every child in every country.
Scotland provides a different frequency measure. In 2023, 61.6% of Scottish children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they read in their spare time at least once a week, while 17.1% said they rarely or never did so. The wording and period differ from the 2024 UK enjoyment and daily-reading measures. Reading in Scotland in 2023, 2023.
How reading changes with age
Age is one of the clearest dividing lines in the available UK figures. In the 2024 survey, 66.5% of children aged 5 to 8 enjoyed reading in their free time. The figure was 51.9% among 8- to 11-year-olds, 30.7% among 11- to 14-year-olds, and 29.7% among 14- to 16-year-olds. It rose to 40.0% among 16- to 18-year-olds.
| UK age group | Enjoyed free-time reading | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 5–8 | 66.5% | 2024 |
| 8–11 | 51.9% | 2024 |
| 11–14 | 30.7% | 2024 |
| 14–16 | 29.7% | 2024 |
| 16–18 | 40.0% | 2024 |
The same source records sharp year-to-year changes in some age bands. Among 8- to 11-year-olds, enjoyment fell from 56.2% in 2023 to 51.9% in 2024. Among 11- to 14-year-olds, it fell from 40.4% to 30.7%. Daily free-time reading among 14- to 16-year-olds fell 10.9 percentage points between 2023 and 2024. Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2023–2024.
BookTrust’s 2024 family survey shows a similar age-related pattern in a different measure. The share of children who said they love reading declined from 33% at age 7 to 29% at age 10 and 25% at age 11. Because this is a family survey and uses the phrase “love reading,” it is not directly interchangeable with the National Literacy Trust’s free-time enjoyment measure. BookTrust research reveals decline in childhood reading enjoyment, 2024 survey.
Gender, socioeconomic and regional differences
The 2024 UK survey found higher reported free-time reading enjoyment among girls than boys. Among 8- to 18-year-olds, 40.5% of girls enjoyed reading in their free time, compared with 28.2% of boys. The resulting gap was 12.3 percentage points, up from 4.8 points in 2023. Between those years, boys’ enjoyment fell 12.3 percentage points, while girls’ enjoyment fell 4.8 points. Daily free-time reading among boys was 17.5% in 2024, the lowest boy reading level recorded in the National Literacy Trust series. Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2023–2024.
Other UK measures show the same broad gender difference, but they cover different populations and dates. In Northern Ireland’s 2022 official survey, 46% of girls and 23% of boys said they had read for pleasure in the previous year. Overall, 34% of young people had done so, up from 28% in 2019. Experience of culture, arts and heritage by young people in Northern Ireland, 2019–2022.
Socioeconomic differences are not identical across surveys. In Northern Ireland in 2022, 24% of young people entitled to free school meals had read for pleasure in the previous year, compared with 37% of those not entitled. In the 2024 UK survey, free-time reading enjoyment was 33.9% among children receiving free school meals and 34.6% among those not receiving them. These figures use different questions, geographies and periods, so they should be read separately rather than combined. Experience of culture, arts and heritage by young people in Northern Ireland, 2022; Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2024.
Within England, the 2024 UK survey recorded the highest free-time reading enjoyment in the West Midlands, at 39.5%, and the lowest in the South East, at 30.8%. These are regional survey results, not estimates of the reading behaviour of every child in those regions. Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2024.
What children read and how they access it
The English Parent, Pupil and Learner Voice survey for 2024–2025 shows that school staff can recommend many kinds of reading beyond assigned schoolwork. Among secondary pupils, 77% said staff recommended books unrelated to schoolwork. The corresponding shares were 24% for poems, 24% for short stories, and 23% for newspapers or articles. Parent, pupil and learner voice: June 2025, 2025 survey.
Among English secondary pupils who read in their free time, physical access remained common: 51% accessed materials by buying a physical copy or having someone buy one for them. School was reported by 44%, and a local library by 28%. Digital routes were also present: 19% used an e-book reading device, 12% used a paid app, and another 12% used websites or online forums for reading materials. These categories describe reported routes of access among pupils who read in their free time; they are not mutually exclusive totals. Parent, pupil and learner voice: June 2025, 2025 survey.
Home, family, school and library conditions
Book ownership is widespread but not universal. In 2023, 91.4% of UK children and young people aged 5 to 18 said they had a book of their own at home. Ownership was 80.8% among children aged 5 to 8 and 93.8% among 8- to 11-year-olds. Children and young people’s book ownership in 2023, 2023.
The same report shows a strong association between owning a book and reported reading. Among UK 8- to 18-year-olds, 46.6% of those who had a book of their own enjoyed reading, compared with 14.8% of those who did not. Daily reading was reported by 30.3% of those with their own book and 10.3% of those without one. Conversely, 50.5% of children without a book of their own rarely or never read, compared with 12.6% of those who had one. These are associations in the 2023 data, not proof that ownership alone caused the difference. Children and young people’s book ownership in 2023, 2023.
Conditions around reading also appear in the Scottish 2023 results. Among 8- to 18-year-olds, 61.8% said they had seen their parents or carers read in the previous four weeks, and 47.9% said their parents or carers had encouraged them to read in that period. A quiet space at home where they could work, read or take time out was reported by 86.4%. Reading in Scotland in 2023, 2023.
BookTrust’s 2024–2025 Bookstart evaluation found that 55% of surveyed early-years families said the programme prompted them to establish a reading routine at home. This is a programme evaluation result for surveyed families, not a population-wide estimate. Bookstart Toddler and Pre-schooler Impact Report, 2024–2025.
Recreational reading and reading outcomes
The National Literacy Trust’s 2024 matched sample links reading attitudes and habits with standardised reading scores for 8- to 14-year-olds. Children who enjoyed reading had a mean score of 109.13, compared with 102.65 for those who did not. In the same sample, 34.2% of children who enjoyed reading scored above the average, compared with 15.7% of those who did not; 5.0% of those who enjoyed reading scored below the average, compared with 9.4% of those who did not.
Daily reading showed a similar pattern. Daily readers had a mean standardised reading score of 109.49, compared with 103.35 for children who did not read daily. Above-average scores were recorded for 36.4% of daily readers and 17.7% of those who did not read daily. Below-average scores were recorded for 5.1% of daily readers and 9.0% of those who did not. The matched sample connects the measures statistically; it does not establish that recreational reading alone produced the score differences. Children and young people’s reading in 2024, 2024 matched survey and Star Reading data.
International studies place children’s reading attitudes in a wider context. Across the 57 education systems participating in PIRLS 2021, 42% of fourth-grade students said they very much liked reading. The gender breakdown was 46% of girls and 37% of boys. In the same international study, 46% of girls were very confident in their reading ability, compared with 40% of boys. PIRLS 2021 Infographic Presentation and Building Reading Motivation: PIRLS 2021, PIRLS 2021.
PISA 2018 measured older students’ attitudes across OECD countries. Among 15-year-olds, 24% of boys and 44% of girls agreed that reading was one of their favourite hobbies. At the same time, 60% of boys and 39% of girls agreed that they read only to get information they needed. Reading for enjoyment at least 30 minutes a day was reported by 43% of girls, while fewer than 25% of boys did so. PISA 2018 Results, Volume II, PISA 2018.