Enjoyment of Reading (percentage of children agreeing)

1996-2003 Attiitudes Toward Reading, U.K.

--Source: NFER Research Development Fund

(see NEH study on similar decline in reading habits of American children)

 

 

"...more negatively, children's enjoyment of reading has significantly declined since 1998, and this is particularly true of the older boys. This is apparent on a cluster of questions: children are now less likely to enjoy reading stories, poems and information books. Compared with 1998, they are more likely to prefer watching television to reading, and less likely to enjoy going to the library. Reading comics, however, is an exception to the pattern, with no decline in popularity over the five years."

This change in attitudes toward learning is Teachers' Handicap No. 2
(No. 1 is the invisible K-1 Vocabulary-Reading Gap)