Why Children Lose Interest in Reading and Writing as They Grow Older

For many parents, the change seems to happen surprisingly quickly.

A child who once asked for another bedtime story begins to avoid books. A primary-school pupil who happily invented characters and filled pages with stories starts to say that writing is boring. By early secondary school, reading may have become something done for English homework, while writing is associated almost entirely with assessment, spelling corrections and exam preparation.

It is tempting to explain this as laziness, excessive screen use or a lack of discipline. However, the latest research suggests a more complicated picture.

In 2026, the National Literacy Trust surveyed 125,375 children and young people aged 5 to 18 across 479 UK schools. Its separate reports on reading and writing found small improvements after several years of decline—but participation remained low, particularly among adolescents. Only 36.1% of 8- to 18-year-olds said they enjoyed reading in their free time, while just 28.7% said they enjoyed writing. Daily participation was lower still: 20.3% read every day and only 11.9% wrote something daily outside schoolwork.

These figures matter far beyond English lessons.

Reading gives students access to ideas, vocabulary, evidence, perspectives and unfamiliar forms of reasoning. Writing requires them to select, organise and test those ideas. Together, the two skills support almost every form of serious academic participation: essay competitions, science projects, debating, economics writing, historical research, mathematical problem-solving and scholarship applications.

The central question is therefore not simply:

“How can we make children read and write more?”

A more useful question is:

“What changes as children grow older, and what conditions make reading and writing feel meaningful enough to continue?”