Scottish primary school pupils have seen both an improvement in their reading skills and a marked uplift in their reading enjoyment levels during the pandemic, according new research.
The annual What Kids are Reading report analysed the reading habits of more than 1.1 million pupils across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, including 46,722 pupils in Scotland. It shows that reading skills improved over lockdown periods, with many children picking up longer books of greater difficulty.
In Scotland the study shows that P1 pupils were reading a larger variety of titles compared with their English counterparts. Book reading difficulty in P2 was highest for Scottish children, who were reading books almost two years ahead of their chronological age.
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However, the report also warns that book difficulty “plateaued” in upper primary and secondary, and that accessing books in lockdown became more difficult for some pupils “due to school and public library closures”.
Overall, the number of books read across the UK and the Republic of Ireland was down 17 per cent compared with the previous year.
The report author, Professor Keith Topping, from the University of Dundee, said: “During the lockdown overall, pupils were tending to read longer books of greater difficulty and with greater comprehension. Having more time to read gave children the chance to immerse themselves in literature and schools should encourage more reading time now that they are open again.
Literacy: Pupils ‘read longer books’ in Covid lockdown
“It is great to see that primary-age children are reading more difficult books and this should be reflected at secondary school age, where book difficulty this year plateaued. Secondary schools need to encourage their pupils to attack more difficult books.”
The data on reading habits and activity from Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader programme was complemented by responses from the National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey.
It shows that reading for pleasure dipped at the beginning of 2020 (48 per cent of children) but increased during the first lockdown in spring 2020, with 55.9 per cent of children and young people saying that they enjoyed reading either very much (24.2 per cent) or quite a lot (31.7 per cent).
When it comes to reading choices during Covid-19, almost seven in 10 children said they had read more fiction during lockdown, with adventure stories by far the most popular fiction genre.
From 2020 to 2021, there was little change in favourite authors overall: Jeff Kinney, David Walliams and Roald Dahl remained popular. JK Rowling reappeared in the 2021 overall list, Jill Murphy was a new entrant and Roderick Hunt declined in popularity.
Another newcomer to the What Kids are Reading rankings was Pamela Butchart, a Scottish secondary teacher and author whose book My Headteacher is a Vampire Rat made it into the top 10 most popular books for primary pupils during the first lockdown.
