A study from the National Literacy Trust (Bonafede et al, 2025) has raised concerns that children and young people’s engagement in writing is at a “crisis point”.
Involving around 115,000 children and young people aged from 5 to 18 and from 515 schools, the study warns that writing enjoyment, motivation and habits are declining.
The findings show that only 27% of those aged 8 to 18 in the research group say they enjoy writing in their free time – marking a huge fall in writing enjoyment over the last 15 years of this research (down from 47% in 2010).
While 60% of 5 to 8-year-olds enjoy writing in their free time, this falls to 41% of 8 to 11-year-olds, and then 25% of 11 to 14-year-olds.
Register now, read forever
Thank you for visiting SecEd and reading some of our content for professionals in secondary education. Register now for free to get unlimited access to all content.
What's included:
-
Unlimited access to news, best practice articles and podcast
-
New content and e-bulletins delivered straight to your inbox every Monday and Thursday
Already have an account? Sign in here