Children’s reading should prioritise pleasure over learning, says laureate

Frank Cottrell-Boyce tells MPs to focus on early-years reading, with more support for parents and nursery workers The children’s laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, has urged the government to prioritise pleasure over learning in children’s reading. Giving evidence to MPs on the education committee, which is investigating the decline in reading for pleasure among children, the screenwriter and novelist said conversations about children’s reading too often revert to attainment in school. He said that the “business of learning to read” can put children off the pleasure of reading. “We can teach them all the steps,” he told MPs, “but the important thing is that they dance.” The number of children reading for pleasure in the UK has declined sharply in recent years. According to the National Literacy Trust’s annual survey, just one in three aged eight to 18 enjoy reading in their spare time – a 36% decrease since 2005. Cottrell-Boyce said the reasons included screens, austerity, Covid and poverty, including the kind of “furniture poverty” experienced in emergency social housing. “No child is going to have a bedtime story if they have not got a bed,” he said. He