Focus on Education

The UCL Institute of Education published the results of a study last week that again demonstrated the benefits of reading for pleasure for young people. The longitudinal study using data from eleven thousand, fourteen year olds found that those who read for pleasure most days understood twenty-six per cent more words than those who did not. The results may not surprise, but the impact of such a difference is significant. If a teenager cannot access twenty-six per cent of the words in a piece of text that they are required to read for their academic work it is likely that they won’t be able to understand its full meaning. Meanwhile, those who can understand the text have no such barriers to their academic progress and it is therefore likely that the gap in achievement will widen over time. To read more about this study on the UCL website please click here.