Reading for Pleasure Without Ranking | Series 1, Episode 44

Episode 44 transcript

Reading for Pleasure should be reading without surveillance, monitoring, or comparison

Picture the children arriving at their first football lesson already knowing the pleasure of kicking a ball around in the garden or at the park. They may not understand every rule, but the game already feels like theirs. Then picture the child whose very first kick takes place in front of a class, where it is immediately obvious who is faster, stronger and more experienced. Reading can create much the same divide.

For some children, school is the first place where they encounter a substantial and varied collection of books. That makes schools indispensable. The problem begins when discovery arrives hand in hand with comparison: a book band everyone can recognise, a public progress chart, a quiz total, a reading log that must be signed, or the nagging feeling that everybody else became a “proper reader” years ago.

The Education Committee’s Reading for Pleasure report, published on 17 July 2026, gets a great deal right about the national picture. It calls for a National Reading Guarantee from birth to 18, sustained action beyond the National Year of Reading, stronger school and public libraries, better professional development, a wider choice of texts and more space for enjoyment, identity and engagement. Crucially, it also says that reading should no longer be driven mainly by assessment.

The awkward question comes next: what will those ambitions look like in practice? A guarantee needs accountability, certainly, but accountability does not have to involve building a fresh scoreboard for children’s leisure reading.

The latest National Literacy Trust survey gives some grounds for cautious optimism. It gathered responses from 125,375 children and young people aged five to 18. Among eight to 18-year-olds, reading enjoyment rose from 32.7% in 2025 to 36.1% in 2026, the first increase since 2021. Daily reading in free time also climbed, from 18.7% to 20.3%. That is welcome, but nobody should start hanging out the bunting just yet. The recovery remains modest, enjoyment among five to eight-year-olds slipped slightly, and socio-economic gaps became wider.

Research from BookTrust makes the early-years picture even more pressing. Its National Family Survey of 3,508 parents and carers found that the proportion of children reported to love reading fell from 55% at age four to 44% at age five. Daily shared reading dropped from 55% to 47% over the same transition.

None of this proves that school, phonics or assessment causes the decline. Starting school changes family life in all sorts of ways. Children are more tired, routines shift, homework and activities compete for attention, and screens are always lurking nearby. Even so, the figures suggest that starting school is a delicate moment, one when reading can quietly change its meaning. A shared story that once stood for closeness, silliness or curiosity may begin to feel like evidence that has to be produced.

The answer is not weaker reading instruction. Decoding, fluency and comprehension need thoughtful, skilled teaching. Difficulties should be identified early, handled confidentially and followed by support that actually helps. Assessment earns its place when it changes what an adult teaches or what help a child receives. It becomes corrosive when it starts assigning status, especially when levels are visible, groups seem permanent, reading ages are discussed within earshot or appealing, age-respectful books look like prizes reserved for children who are already fluent.

Schools therefore need two connected but clearly different lanes. One is reading instruction, assessment and diagnostic support. The other is reading life: listening to stories, browsing, rereading, laughing, chatting, choosing, abandoning a book, changing one’s mind and occasionally keeping a reading experience entirely private. Teach the skill properly, but take the status contest out of it.

This distinction matters because children do not have to decode independently before they can belong to a reading community. A child can love an audiobook, follow a story through its illustrations, join a class read-aloud, explore a comic or become fascinated by information that sits beyond their current reading level. Competence can strengthen motivation, of course, but confidence, relevance and a sense of belonging can also persuade a pupil to keep going. We do not need to choose between teaching children to read and giving them a reason to want to.

The Committee’s own pupil evidence shows how easily a celebration of reading can turn into a ranking exercise. One group planned to nominate the pupil who was “best at reading” and display their photograph in the library. The intention was kind. The message received by everyone else might be rather different.

Points, badges and certificates are not inherently harmful. Plenty of children enjoy collecting them. What matters is how the system works. Is the goal voluntary? Do listening and rereading count? Can a pupil take part without their results being displayed? Are slower readers being compared with classmates who can race through several books in the same time? A challenge chosen by the reader is not the same thing as a target imposed through a school dashboard.

The same judgement should guide the use of digital reading. A written evidence submission from Elibraries for Schools makes a constructive case for wider digital access, easier public library registration and greater investment in children’s literature expertise. Alongside those proposals, however, it recommends automatic reading records, a unique reading ID that follows each pupil through school, central analysis of reading activity and quantitative targets.

Those ideas are not Committee policy. They come from one stakeholder submission, but they raise an important question that should not be brushed aside. Does an activity still feel voluntary when every download, borrowing choice and abandoned title can become part of a permanent institutional record?

Digital libraries can make a real difference for pupils who cannot easily visit a public library, need larger text, benefit from audio support or have few books at home. Schools should make full use of them. At the same time, they should follow basic principles of data minimisation, set clear retention periods and place strict limits on profiling, ranking and any secondary use of children’s information. A child ought to be able to try a book, dislike it and move on without wondering what a system will make of that decision.

The strongest form of accountability would measure whether the guarantee exists, not whether an individual child appears to be enjoying it enough. Government should know whether every school has a functioning library or equivalent provision, trained staff, reliable opening hours, current stock, accessible formats, a proper refresh budget and meaningful pupil influence over purchasing. Anonymous surveys can ask whether pupils feel comfortable, represented and able to find something that interests them. What government does not need is a national league table of individual leisure reading.

That principle leads to some straightforward changes in school. During a protected reading-for-pleasure period, public charts, compulsory reviews, page targets and instant comprehension tasks can be put aside. Pupils can reread, browse, listen, change books, look at pictures, choose magazines or graphic novels, join a conversation or simply read quietly. Informal book talk still has an important place. The Open University describes it as reader-to-reader discussion in safe, non-assessed settings, which is a good deal closer to how enthusiastic adult readers actually behave.

One useful four-week trial would be to protect a single weekly reading period from visible comparison while continuing all required phonics, screening, teaching and intervention at other times. Afterwards, ask three anonymous questions: did you find something you wanted to read or hear, did you feel comfortable, and what would make the next session better? The useful evidence will concern access, missing formats and obstacles in the environment, not named totals of pages, minutes or completed books.

Libraries need people as well as shelves. The School Library Association estimates that around 484 secondary schools have no library and says the Government’s £5 million secondary book fund amounts to roughly £1,450 per school, or about 200 books. The Committee confirms that the money cannot be used for textbooks or GCSE set texts. That restriction makes sense, but it also reveals a separate funding problem. A more varied English curriculum will require class sets, accessible editions, audio licences, planning time, staff development and sensible lead times. Set-text reform needs its own budget rather than quietly swallowing the money intended for school libraries.

The National Year of Reading’s invitation, “Whatever you’re into, read into it”, is a strong place to begin. Football, gaming, fashion, machinery, music, manga, recipes and religious texts can all provide a way in. The trouble starts when an interest-led book arrives trailed by a worksheet, a quiz score and a compulsory number of minutes. At that point, the invitation begins to look suspiciously like another assignment.

School should remove the home advantage, not put it on display. A child who has never had books at home should not meet books and ranking at the same moment. The first message should not be “show us how good you are”. It should be “there is something here for you”. That small change in emphasis can shape the whole experience.

Measure whether the door is open. Do not count every step a child takes through it. Teach the skill. Guarantee the access. Protect the pleasure.

Further reading and useful sources

• UK Parliament Education Committee: Reading for Pleasure: The official report setting out the proposed National Reading Guarantee, library investment and a shift towards enjoyment, identity and engagement.
• UK Parliament Education Committee: Reading for Pleasure inquiry: The inquiry page brings together the remit, oral evidence, written submissions and future Government response.
• Elibraries for Schools: Written evidence to the Reading for Pleasure inquiry: A stakeholder proposal combining universal digital access with individual reading records, central data analysis and quantitative targets.
• National Literacy Trust: Children and young people’s reading in 2026: The latest large UK survey of reading enjoyment, frequency and inequalities.
• BookTrust: Children’s love of reading drops as they start primary school: Research on changes in reading enjoyment and shared reading around the transition into Reception.
• National Year of Reading 2026: Go All In: The official campaign links reading with children’s existing interests, hobbies and preferred formats.
• School Library Association: Supplementary evidence on funding for school libraries: Evidence on gaps in secondary library provision, staffing and the practical value of the £5 million book fund.
• Open University: Informal book talk and recommendations: Guidance on reader-to-reader discussion in safe, non-assessed contexts.
• School Reading List: Education Committee 2026 Reading for Pleasure – 13 ideas: Practical suggestions for turning the Committee’s recommendations into school action.

How School Reading List’s resources can help with reading for pleasure

• Education Committee 2026 Reading for Pleasure: 13 ideas turns the Committee’s recommendations into practical actions for schools, including protected reading time, pupil involvement, stronger libraries and inclusive provision. It recommends recording whether reading sessions take place rather than monitoring what each pupil reads, while avoiding compulsory logs, tests, public reading labels and page-count targets.
• Reading assessments vs Go All In examines how diagnostic assessment can identify pupils who need support without allowing scores, labels and test preparation to crowd out choice-led reading, whole books, library browsing, read-alouds, comics, magazines and audiobooks.
• Why reading records are a bad idea considers how compulsory records, parental signatures and page totals can make reading feel like a chore or obligation while revealing little about a child’s comprehension, fluency, decoding or enjoyment.
• How to make timetabled reading time in schools exciting offers ideas for developing a choice-rich reading culture through independent, paired and group reading, informal book talk, library browsing and varied text types rather than expecting quiet compliance alone.
• Unlock reading through things children love shows how schools can begin with pupils’ existing interests, including football, gaming, music, fashion, food, film and hobbies, and use interest-led book choices to make reading feel relevant and inviting.
• What happens when children spend the book budget? explores how pupil librarians can be given a genuine share of the school book budget, with a practical model for collecting requests, choosing titles and buying stock that reflects what children actually want to read.
• Book series for children to encourage reading for pleasure recommends series from preschool to KS4. Familiar characters, settings and story worlds can make the next book easier to enter while helping children develop confidence, fluency, motivation and sustained reading habits.
• Graphic novels for KS2 children aged 7-11 provides a regularly revised selection for Years 3-6, offering confident and less confident readers engaging combinations of words and pictures through which stories and challenging themes can be explored.
• Graphic novels for young adults aged 12-16 recommends accessible and visually engaging titles for Years 7-11, including books suited to reluctant readers as well as experienced readers looking for complex stories presented in a different format.
• Audiobooks for children and audiobooks for teens provide more than 20 recommendations for each age group. They can help pupils enjoy stories beyond their current independent print-reading level, encounter unfamiliar genres and participate fully in a shared reading culture.
• Magazines and newspapers for children and teenagers curates more than 100 comics, newspapers, magazines and periodicals for ages 3-6, 7-12 and 13+, giving schools short-form, visual and interest-led alternatives for pupils who may not immediately choose a novel.
• Storybooks online collects author-read videos of picture books, poems, chapter books and YA novels, organised by age. The videos can support class read-alouds, book tasting, library introductions and opportunities for pupils to explore a title before deciding whether to continue with it.