The YouGov survey findings | Reluctant Readers: Why teachers are concerned about the rise of struggling and reluctant readers and what you can do to help

Introduction

Many teachers will be familiar with the concept of ‘reluctant readers’ – students who are capable of reading but who, for a variety of reasons, are reluctant to do so. There have been several studies over the years showing that reading reluctance increases in adolescence¹, that struggling readers are particularly susceptible² and that boys on average tend to be more averse to reading a book than girls³.

Teachers’ views of the problem are less well known. How widespread do they believe reading reluctance is? What impact do they think it has on the wider school curriculum? Is the link between a limited vocabulary and poor literacy understood outside the classroom? Do they think the problem is getting worse and, if so, how should it be tackled and who within schools should take the lead?

To answer these questions, GL Assessment commissioned YouGov to poll a representative sample of secondary school teachers⁴. The results were revealing – in fact, they were emphatic. By large majorities, teachers feel that reading reluctance is an issue, that it is on the increase and that it is especially apparent in ‘average’ to ‘below average’ readers in Key Stage 3, who they fear will suffer in GCSEs if that weakness isn’t addressed.

The main findings are outlined below, but the key thing to consider is that this average/just below average cohort of students represents 49% of all students⁵. And while their reading may seem superficially fine in Year 7, progress often stalls in later years. By boosting this group’s reading skills, schools will significantly improve academic performance at Year 11 in all subjects.

Elsewhere in this report, Lisa Ling (Nene Park Academy), Vicky Merrick (Independent Consultant) and Beth Morrish (Meridian Trust) outline how they identify these ‘invisible but struggling’ readers, why addressing the issue at KS3 requires a systematic, whole school approach, and what interventions are best for which groups and individuals. Meanwhile, GL Assessment's Georgina Cook explains exactly what the New Group Reading Test is and how schools can use it to support all students on their reading journey.

Secondary schools understandably often concentrate on helping the very weakest readers. But statistically these represent only 11% of all students⁶. As our experts point out, the much larger numbers of ‘invisible but struggling’ readers also need support – and when they receive it, the improvement in reading proficiency can be phenomenal.

Main findings

The 'invisible but struggling' readers

Not only do most secondary school teachers in our survey think that reading reluctance is a growing problem, but they also believe progress with certain groups of students tends to stall at KS3, which leaves those students ill-equipped to access the curriculum.

Lisa Ling characterises these students as the ‘invisible but struggling’ readers. “They can read enough to get by, but they don’t really understand most of every lesson. These are the key group, those who made the most progress – this is where you can get your quick wins.”

7 in 10 teachers (71% - rising to 84% of heads) think that there has been an increase in reluctant readers over the past three years – very few (6%) disagree
Two-thirds (67%) say they have noticed that reading ability tends to stall among average or below average students in KS3, leaving them unable to fully access GCSEs – only 8% disagree
8 in 10 teachers (81%) agree that if students cannot read at the expected level for their year group, they won’t be able to access the curriculum.

Teacher training is key

Respondents also tend to agree that more training for both teachers and students is part of the solution:

Three-fifths of respondents (61%) feel there needs to be more training in how to develop students’ reading and vocabulary skills
A similar proportion (59%) think teachers need more training to understand the link between oracy and reading.

Beth Morrish points out that secondary teachers can underestimate how complex the process of reading and learning to read is, but this doesn’t mean we should expect them to teach struggling students how to read. “The point isn’t that they become teachers of readers, but that they become classroom practitioners who enable struggling readers to access their lessons. If primary school is about learning to read; at secondary, it’s about reading to learn.”

Developing a proper reading strategy

While most respondents say that reading is a strategic priority for their school, there is less consensus over responsibility for delivery:

Two-thirds of teachers (65% - rising to 84% of heads) say supporting students with reading is a strategic priority for their school
Four-fifths (80%) agree that all subject leaders should take responsibility for developing reading skills in their lessons
But while 47% of respondents say responsibility for reading doesn’t automatically rest with English departments in their school, similar numbers – 44% – say it does.

Lisa Ling emphasises that a school can’t just pick a strategy off a shelf and hope it will work: “It sounds easy, getting children to read, but so much complexity is involved in implementing a proper reading strategy. It needs someone senior to lead and own it, it needs planning, it needs teacher training, it requires discussion about what will and won’t work.”

Targeted interventions

Notwithstanding that, most teachers believe that targeted interventions are helping struggling readers and that assessment plays a crucial role:

Two-thirds of teachers (65% – rising to 73% of heads) say their school is using reading assessment data to help identify barriers to learning
Well over half of teachers (55%) think their school’s reading interventions are improving student outcomes – only 1 in 10 (12%) disagree
Over a half of teachers (56% – rising to 73% of heads) say their school has introduced additional reading time to help students with comprehension – a third (31%) say they haven’t.

Lisa says that certain interventions can be extraordinarily effective if the students are correctly identified, their abilities accurately assessed and the teachers are properly trained. “After a single term, one of the initiatives Nene Park Academy used – the Faster Reading project – resulted in some of the weaker readers in a Year 8 cohort improving their New Group Reading Test Standard Age Scores by up to 20 SAS points in one term.” (A change of 3 SAS points over one year is considered significant.)

A question of gender?

Most respondents agree with earlier research suggesting that reading reluctance is greater among boys than girls – though our findings suggest that teachers think a significant number of girls are reluctant readers, too:

Less than a fifth of teachers (17%) say boys see being asked to read as something that’s fun – almost a half (46%) disagree
A quarter (24%) say girls see reading as fun, and a third (33%) say they don’t
Over half (53%) say boys will choose an easy book over a harder one
Only a quarter (26%) say girls will do the same .

However, teachers think there is a clear gender split when it comes to understanding the importance of reading to academic outcomes. They believe girls make the connection between reading ability and school performance, whereas boys don’t:

Nearly half of teachers (45%) say boys don’t make the connection between reading ability and school performance – only 16% think they do
But the figures are reversed for girls – 43% of teachers think that girls do make the link between reading ability and school performance and less than a fifth (18%) think they don’t.

This engagement issue can present itself in different ways. Vicky Merrick says her colleagues were initially perplexed by the persistent challenging behaviour of a group of Year 9 boys at her school and the failure of the usual sanctions to make an impact. Then they looked at the NGRT data: “What emerged, for a group of just under 30 of our Year 9 boys, was a high correlation between a rapid increase in recent negative behaviour incidents and a recent dip in mean Standardised Age Scores… Students who had previously achieved mean SAS that were average, now were not.”

Reading at home

When it comes to reading outside of school, most teachers are sceptical that much is taking place daily. Social media, they believe, is to blame, but they also think that parents have a role to play:

9 in 10 teachers (89%) think that most children are reading less than 15 minutes daily outside of school – with 4 in 10 (40%) believing that children are spending no time at all reading
Teachers think social media is to blame – 9 in 10 (88%) believe social media distracts children from reading or getting into books and 8 in 10 (82%) think social media has had a negative effect on students’ willingness to read for pleasure
But 9 in 10 (92%) think that parents who model good reading behaviour increase the likelihood of their children reading for pleasure.

Lisa also believes parents have a role to play in a successful reading strategy. In her Faster Reading project, students were encouraged to repeat read at home with their parents. They made more progress with the second book, The Prince of Mist, “because it was unknown and difficult” and as it was one of a series, they could then dive into the next.

Conclusions

The vast majority of teachers think reading reluctance has been growing at KS3 and that progress tends to stall among struggling readers. They also strongly agree that if these students – who comprise 54% of all students – aren’t reading at the expected level for their year group, they won’t be able to fully access the curriculum or do well in their GCSEs.

Most also believe that teachers and students could benefit from more training, particularly when it comes to understanding the connection between oracy and literacy, though on the whole they believe reading is a strategic priority for their school.

Teachers are less sure about who should be responsible for reading, however, with a significant minority believing that task primarily rests with the English department, even though most concede that subject leads also have a responsibility. But most do acknowledge that reading interventions are improving student outcomes and that reading assessments are playing a crucial role in identifying barriers to learning.

Most teachers also tend to agree that more boys than girls are reluctant readers, though the figures suggest there are sizeable numbers of girls who are book averse, too. Even so, there is a clear gender split when it comes to awareness of the consequences – teachers think girls understand the connection between reading ability and school performance, but boys don’t. Teachers also believe that little reading takes place outside of school on a daily basis and that the rise of social media is largely to blame.

Footnotes

Clare Snowball (2008) Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries, Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 39:2, 106-120, DOI: 10.1080/00048623.2008.10721336
Wanzek, J., Wexler, J., Vaughn, S. et al. Reading interventions for struggling readers in the upper elementary grades: a synthesis of 20 years of research. Read Writ 23, 889–912 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-009-9179-5
Cole, A., Brown, A., Clark, C. and Picton, I. (2022). Children and young people’s reading engagement in 2022: Continuing insight into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on reading. London: National Literacy Trust.
This survey is based on a YouGov representative online survey, which involved 539 secondary school teachers in the UK and was conducted during November 2022.
49% of students in the New Group Reading Test standardised sample sit in stanines 3, 4 and 5.
11% of students in the New Group Reading Test standardised sample sit in stanines 1 and 2.

Reluctant Readers: why reading reluctance is a growing problem and what teachers can do to help