The UK continues to face a huge adult-literacy challenge, with a sizeable percentage of the UK adult population having very low literacy skills. In addition to highlighting the literacy challenge in the UK, this report shows these individuals experience negative impacts on personal relationships, wellbeing, health, and education, as well as a…

The authors conducted their latest National Literacy Trust Annual Literacy Survey between January and mid-March 2020. This Annual Literacy Survey was their most popular to date, with 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 from 315 UK schools participating. This year they also asked a few questions to explore the extent to which children and…

This report outlines findings from questions included in the National Literacy Trust's Annual Literacy Survey in early 2021 to explore children and young people's literacy-related interactions in relation to video game playing. The survey reached 42,502 children and young people aged 8 to 18 between January and mid-March 2021, during the third…

Listening to children's experiences of writing during the first lockdown in spring 2020, it became clear that for many it had been a time of increased creativity, with children writing everything from songs and stories to scripts, and some even beginning their own novels. Another prominent theme in the research last summer was that having more…

Research has shown that book ownership has a significant impact on life outcomes. In 2019, we found that that children who reported that they had a book of their own were not only more engaged with reading but also six times more likely to read above the level expected for their age than children who did not own a book (22% vs. 3.6%). We included…

The National Literacy Trust's research during the first national lockdown in spring 2020 showed that more children and young people said that they enjoyed reading and more read more often during lockdown compared with before the pandemic. Children and young people's comments suggested that this was because they suddenly had time to (re)engage with…

Since March 2020, the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has explored the various benefits of audiobooks for children and young people, from building comprehension skills to sharing stories across generations. Time and again, two key themes have arisen: the power of audio to engage reluctant readers, and the role of audiobooks in promoting and…

What happens in the early years of a child's life has a profound impact on the rest of their life. This significant and influential phase in visual, language and emotional development lays the foundation for lifelong health, learning and earning potential. In August 2021 National Literacy Trust commissioned Savanta ComRes to conduct a survey of…

This report outlines findings from the National Literacy Trust's tenth Annual Literacy Survey relating to children and young people's reading in 2020, in addition to findings from the Trust's survey of children and young people's reading during the COVID-19 lockdown. 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 in the UK took part in the Annual…

Audiobooks have become increasingly popular in the digital age: streaming and subscription services, such as Audible and Spotify, have made audio stories available to a wide commercial audience, while apps like Libby and BorrowBox facilitate 'borrowing' of audiobooks from library services. With access easier and more widespread than ever, it is…

In 2018, the Great School Libraries Campaign was launched with the aim of bringing school libraries and librarians to every school in the UK, and to gather data on the quality and quantity of school libraries that already exist. Previous research has clearly highlighted the importance of school libraries, not just for children and young people's…

Numerous national and international studies have explored reading for enjoyment in connection to reading skill as well as to other reading variables, such as reading motivation and reading frequency. These studies tend to show that reading for enjoyment is an important predictor of reading skill, and is linked with how often children and young…

In 2016, we recorded the highest levels of reading enjoyment to date, with nearly 6 in 10 saying that they enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot. Read more about children's and young people's reading enjoyment, based on our seventh annual literacy survey which we conducted in November/December 2016. 42,406 children and young people aged…

This report uses data from the National Literacy Trust's 2019 Annual Literacy Survey and the Great School Library Campaign to determine how many schools in the UK have had a writer visit in the last year, their reasons for organising the visit, and the relationship the visit had with children and young people's engagement with reading and writing.…

To celebrate Blue Peter turning 60, we took a closer look at children and young people's letter writing in 2017/18, exploring how many children write letters in their free time, how often children write letters, and why children decide to write, or not write, letters. Our report is based on the responses of 42,363 pupils aged 8 to 18 who answered…