Latest report reveals what UK children really love to read

Stark contrast between books children are reading and their favourites - full findings of the ‘What Kids Are Reading 2015’ report revealed

The results of the biggest annual study of its kind into British children’s reading habits, What Kids Are Reading reveal a striking contrast between the books that children read the most and those they vote for as their favourites.

While the ‘most read’ charts are dominated by Roald Dahl and Jeff Kinney (eight Dahl titles make the most read charts, and 16 Kinney books take top spots), when it comes to children’s favourite books the results are very different. The overwhelming favourite book for primary school children was Demon Dentist by David Walliams, while secondary aged pupils voted The Fault in our Stars by John Green as their favourite.

With the largest response to date, over 9 million comprehension quizzes on fiction and non-fiction titles were taken by British school children in the last academic year, confirming their own choice of favourite books and authors.  This year’s report by Renaissance Learning looks in detail at the reading habits of 580,309 children in 2,757 UK schools.

The influence of media and culture is strongly evident in children’s favourite books. Whereas time honoured classics feature heavily in the ‘most read’ charts, the ‘most popular’ lists are dominated by celebrity culture, with the majority of the ‘favourite’ books appearing on our screens as blockbuster films, either written by or starring famous names. Celebrity authors like David Walliams feature heavily, with The Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Divergent series dominating the lists. Without exception, the top 20 primary and secondary choices are either anti-hero comedies or epic fantasies.

The ‘most read’ books indicated the amount of times a book was read in school, while the favourite charts gives a greater insight into what children actually enjoyed reading the most. This is based on a voting mechanism within the Renaissance Learning software, where children are invited to rate books once they have read them.

James Bell, Director of Professional Services of educational software company Renaissance Learning, which published the report findings said:  “What Kids Are Reading is unique because, unlike sales lists or library loans, it looks at the books actually read. What’s more, comparing the most read and the most popular books among children gives us a unique insight into what titles they really like, rather than what we think they like.”

UK pupils’ most popular book choices fall into two distinct categories – either epic, dystopian fantasies, such as Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series and Veronica Roth’s Divergent novels, or irreverent, larger than life anti-hero comedies in the form of Mr Stink, Gangsta Granny, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Twits.  While the primary chart top 20 are split down the middle – featuring equal amounts of comedy and fantasy, by secondary school, the ‘most popular’ charts almost exclusively feature darker conflicts from an epic fantasy genre.

This year’s chart is also a tale of classic and modern literature sitting side by side.  It seems children disregard the age of a book, when picking their favourites, and are just as happy to read a book written last year as they are reading books written nearly 80 years ago.  John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937), JRR Tolkein’s The Hobbit (1937) and Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham (1960) sit alongside titles by newcomers such as Cassandra Clare and David Walliams.

The report’s author, Professor Keith Topping comments: “This year’s findings reveal a sharp contrast in the difficulty rating between primary and secondary pupils.  Primary School pupils, particularly in Years 1-5 show a strong preference for challenging books which are significantly beyond their natural reading age. We then see a marked difference in Year 7 where favoured books are no longer above chronological age, but six months below it and in ensuing years the difficulty of books plateaus or declines.”

The seventh annual ‘What Kids Are Reading’ report, authored by Professor Keith Topping and published by education software company Renaissance Learning, looks in detail at the reading choices of British schoolchildren. 

Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader quizzing software not only assesses which books are being read, it also tests children’s detailed comprehension of their chosen books. This is the biggest annual study of its kind into British children’s reading habits. In total this academic year, 580,309 children in 2757 schools took over 9 million quizzes, confirming their favourite books and authors – this is 36% more children than last year and 43% more quizzes taken.   Children read 84% more words than last year. And they were reading longer (but not necessarily harder) books than last year.

To access the 2015 report, visit www.whatkidsarereading.co.uk