Developing readers who choose to read

Internationally, far too many young people can read, but do not choose to do so - they have the skill but not the will - the desire to read. The persistent decline in the number of children who enjoy reading is alarming (e.g. Mullis et al., 2023). In Australia, 26% of the 10–11-year-olds who participated in the last Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) reported that they didn’t like reading (Hillman et al., 2023). In England too, more children reported disliking reading (24%) than their peers across the world- the international median across 57 countries was 18% (Mullis et al. 2023). These young people are not only disengaged readers- they are also disadvantaged learners.