Children's reading comprehension falls without storytime, Egmont study reveals

Children’s reading comprehension declines to half the expected rate when they do not have regular storytime, a study from Egmont has revealed.

Egmont’s 2018 study of 120 children aged seven to 11, at St Joseph’s Catholic Academy in Stoke-on-Trent, found pupils’ reading comprehension increased over a five-month period by an average of 10 months—double the expected rate—when teachers regularly read to their class for pleasure. Some children’s comprehension developed by more than two years over the same period. Returning to the school in 2019, Egmont found that without regular storytime, progress reduced to half the expected rate (2.6 months).

Revealing the findings at Egmont’s annual consumer and market insight presentation on Wednesday (26th February), consumer insight director Alison David said: “Regular storytime is powerful. Include it in the school day and reading comprehension increases rapidly.” Its study found three things help improve children’s reading for pleasure: being read to beyond the point at which a child is capable of reading independently; having a wide choice of titles; and having a free choice of titles.

David (pictured right) told The Bookseller: “We found even in the home environment, lots of children didn’t have free choice because there are things parents think that they ought to read.Certainly at school there’s no free choice because you’re on [curriculum] reading schemes. We found that if a book was given by a well-meaning auntie or someone longing to inspire a love of reading in that child, it often turned them off... [but] if you take a child into a bookshop and give them a £10 note and say, ‘You can have anything you like’, it does motivate them.”

Egmont found that not being read to, literacy overshadowing reading for pleasure and screen time hinders reading for pleasure. “School seems to make [reading] a subject to learn and lots of parents seem to see it as a skill, with the goal to become a fluent reader,” said David. “It’s a misunderstanding that ‘can read’ means ‘will choose to read’—it doesn’t at all.”

According to Egmont, 40% of six to 11-year-olds read for pleasure daily or nearly every day, while 25% of six to 11-year-olds are read to daily or nearly every day at home. Children who read for pleasure fare better in terms of school attainment, social mobility and emotional wellbeing, Egmont claimed. Recent OECD research shows that if pupils read for pleasure daily, 75% of Year 6 would achieve the level that predicts five or more GCSE pass grades. Currently that figure is 67%.

Since 2018 there has been a 6% increase in five to seven-year-olds read- ing independently, to 41%, according to Egmont’s research, with 44% of the age range being read to on a daily basis by their parents, up from 39% in 2018. “The growth in five- to-sevens reading independently is no coincidence,” said Davis. “Reading to children is directly linked to their own motivation to read.”

A third of children under 13 are read to daily or nearly every day by their parents, according to Nielsen data, with 23% of 11 to 13-year-olds reading independently daily, down from 32% in 2018. Davis added: “When you look at what’s happening with reading and what’s happening with sales, it tells you a bought book is not necessarily a read book. If we don’t have children reading then we don’t have a children’s book market, or an adult book market in the future.”

In response to the findings, Egmont has called for daily storytime to be made a statutory part of the school curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2. Munira Wilson, Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, put forward an Early Day Motion in Parliament to support Egmont’s ambition. Davis said: “It’s every child’s right to be read to every day, and it should be absolutely an intrinsic part of growing up.It’s abso-lutely fundamental to a healthy, happy childhood.”

Children’s author Michael Morpurgo is backing the campaign: “It is vital that children, young people and all of us have access to stories which give us the knowledge, empathy and understanding we need to negotiate life. But just as importantly, we need to give children, and their teachers and parents, time to read.”

David Reedy, literacy expert and author, added: “This research should be considered carefully by policymakers. Teachers who do not read regularly to their pupils tell me that it is very difficult to find the time, with the current National Curriculum packed tight and pressure from statutory testing. Time must be made for reading aloud, preferably every day, because of the clear benefits demonstrated by this research. If this means some slimming down of the less important content of the current National Curriculum in English, such as much of the grammar strand, then it must be done as quickly as possible.”