Reading for Pleasure

Why Reading For Pleasure? - The Evidence

Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. Key outcomes are listed below!

• Improvement in vocabulary in comparison to non-readers (Millennium Cohort Study)
• Correlation between regularity of reading for pleasure and ability in reading each reinforcing the other as students get older (Cremin 2019, Torppa 2020)
• Better performance in subjects other than English (Millennium Cohort Study)
• Reading for pleasure is one of the most important predictors of test scores at age 16, regardless of background (OECD)
• There is a strong correlation between regular reading for Pleasure and Mental Wellbeing which is separate from other predictors (NLT 2018)
• Reading improves a child’s empathy skills (Oatly 2016)
• Interventions developing Reading for Pleasure attitudes (offering book choice and time to read rather than instruction) have a greater influence on reading ability than reading lessons for older children/adults (Greenberg 2014)