Is Four the Magic Number? Number of books read in a month and young people's wider reading behaviour
Earlier this year Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, announced that British children were not reading enough and should, he believed, read 50 books a year. This idea had come from a charter school he had visited in the US and was met with some degree of scepticism by authors and professionals who questioned whether a focus on quantity rather than engagement with books, especially at a time when libraries were being closed across the country, was the best approach to take.
Putting aside the politics of this proposition, what is the evidence that reading four books a month instead of, say, one or ten has an impact on reading attainment and other reading variables? Using data from our first annual literacy survey of over 18,000 young people, this short paper explores the relationship between the number of books young people read in a month and other reading variables, such as reading enjoyment, attitudes towards reading, reading frequency and reading length as well as reading attainment.
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