Modern life means children miss out on pleasures of reading a good book | Books | The Observer

via Modern life means children miss out on pleasures of reading a good book | Books | The Observer.

Hulton Getty

Reading for pleasure is declining among primary-age pupils, and increasing numbers of “time poor” parents are dropping the ritual of sharing bedtime stories with their children once they start school.

Research presented to the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield last week found that, while parents read to pre-schoolers, this later tails off, and by the final year of primary school only around 2% read to their children every day. Once children can read competently, parents tend to step back, and this usually happens at the age of seven or eight.

The report, entitled Is Children’s Reading a Casualty of Modern Life?, also found that 82% of teachers blame the government’s “target-driven” education policies for the fact that fewer children are reading for pleasure…