Kids & Family Reading Report: 5th Edition

This biannual survey explores the reading attitudes and experiences that most influence children’s reading habits, including reading aloud at home, independent reading at school, presence of books in the home, and more. Findings from the 2014 survey show that just over 1,000 children ages 6 to 17, only 31 percent said they read a book for fun almost daily, down from 37 percent four years ago. The report asks what makes children frequent readers, creating two models for predicting children’s reading frequency-one each among kids ages 6–11 and 12–17-constructed through a regression analysis of more than 130 data measures from the survey. Across both groups, three powerful predictors that children will be frequent readers include: (1) the child’s reading enjoyment; (2) parents who are frequent readers; and (3) the child’s belief that reading for fun is important.