It's official, reading is coming back

by: Romany Howes (20 May 2015)

Reading is coming back into favour with UK schoolchildren, increasing numbers of whom are choosing to read in their spare time! This is the good news from The National Literacy Trust who questioned 32,000 pupils aged eight to 18.

Unsurprisingly, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins was high on the list but only in second place behind Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

According to the survey:

• 40.2% thought reading was cool
• 23.2% thought reading was not cool
• 54.4% enjoyed reading "very much" or "quite a lot"
• 35.5% enjoyed reading "a bit"
• 10% did not enjoy reading at all

What is more significant is that more and more children are reading outside of mandatory environments, i.e. the classroom, with those who read daily outside of school increasing from 32.2% in 2013 to 41.1% in 2014. .

The top ten most popular list includes: .

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney
• The Hunger Games series – Suzanne Collins
• Twilight series – Stephanie Meyer
• Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
• Gangsta Granny – David Walliams
• Alex Rider series – Anthony Horowitz
• How to Train Your Dragon series – Cressida Cowell
• Divergent – Veronica Roth
• Frozen – Calliope Glass
• The Fault in our Stars – John Green

But it’s not just fiction that is attracting the kids: other media such as comics, websites and song lyrics are also being read more widely. However, before we get ahead of ourselves, overall, more than half (55.2%) of children said they preferred watching television to reading. .

Children’s literature is enjoying a new popularity so if there are any budding authors out there, get to it. Write your book and send it to us at Writeitclearly.com for proofreading and formatting. Remember, agents and publishers are more likely to look at a manuscript that is correctly spelt and grammatically accurate.

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