Plan B Forum

Increasing numbers of UK schoolchildren are choosing to read in their spare time, with six in 10 having a favourite work of fiction, research suggests.

The National Literacy Trust questioned some 32,000 pupils aged eight to 18.
Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid was the most mentioned favourite work of fiction, followed by The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Children's laureate Malorie Blackman said she was "delighted" more children were enjoying the pleasures of reading.

Enjoyment and frequency of reading are both at their highest levels for nine years, the survey suggests.
40.2% thought reading was cool
23.2% thought reading was not cool
54.4% enjoyed reading "very much" or "quite a lot"
35.5% enjoyed reading "a bit"
10% did not enjoy reading at all

There was also an increase in the proportion who said they read daily outside class, from 32.2% in 2013 to 41.1% in 2014.
The charity attributes this sharp rise to initiatives such as Bookstart, the Summer Reading Challenge, its own Young Readers Programme and the work of a series of children's authors who have campaigned as children's laureates.

Most mentioned favourite fiction
Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
Harry Potter - JK Rowling
Gangsta Granny - David Walliams
Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
How to Train Your Dragon - Cressida Cowell
Divergent - Veronica Roth
Frozen - Calliope Glass
The Fault in our Stars - John Green
Source: National Literacy Trust

Children are not only reading more fiction but also a wide variety of other materials, including:
websites
emails
texts
comics
non-fiction
manuals
song lyrics
poems

However, the research also suggests a persistent gender gap between girls and boys, with 46.5% of girls saying they read daily outside class, compared with 35.8% of boys.
Girls were also more likely to say they enjoyed reading very much or quite a lot: 61.6%, compared with 47.1% of boys.
Overall, more than half (55.2%) of children said they preferred watching television to reading, and almost a quarter (24.3%) believed their parents did not care if they spent time reading, rising to 31.5% among children on free school meals.
Trust director Jonathan Douglas described the survey as "encouraging" but said it was a "real concern that almost a third of the most disadvantaged children think their parents do not care whether they read".