Children's Access to Books

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Reading aloud is not just a pleasure for the people who listen to the story but for those who read the story. After all, we are all politicians here and we love hearing the sound of our voices. Indeed, I am telling a story today; we are doing storytelling for the future.

Before I continue, I wonder whether there are any more interventions. No? Then, I will happily continue to discuss the pandemic, but first I will comment on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell). I congratulate him on writing a children’s book—unfortunately I have yet to receive a copy, but I look forward to receiving one tout suite and I thank him very much for that.

I return to the effect that the pandemic has had on literacy rates. What is most concerning is the effect on the 10% of children who spent the pandemic at home without books. When they returned to school, they would have been further behind their peers who had books at home. Children on free school meals are not only much less likely to own books but are much less likely to enjoy reading with their friends—a statistic that has doubled over the pandemic, as children spent long periods without access to books or other reading material due to schools being closed.

As I mentioned in the previous debate that I secured, which focused on the importance of improving access to libraries, something that has been recently reinforced to me is the data that shows that 30% of parents were borrowing more books from libraries than ever before. Clearly, that is paying dividends in my area, with the announcement of a new library in Thurcroft. However, accessing books can be made easier, making it more likely that people will do that than only going to a library.

In my local area, Labour-run Rotherham council has spent millions of pounds on building a new central library, but we are still paying upwards of £5 million a year in rent for Riverside House, the council offices and library, which opened just 10 years ago, few of my constituents in Rother Valley will ever visit it and fewer still will want to borrow a book from the catalogue, which is in dire need of updating. Spending just a fraction of the money that the Labour-run council has spent on putting books into the hands of the children of Rother Valley would be a far more efficient way to improve those children’s lives.

Rotherham, as we know, has the second lowest reading attainment levels for key stage 2, something that the data shows us can easily be solved by helping children to access books more easily. That is where Rotherham council should be spending money instead. Luckily, there are easy solutions to these issues, both locally and nationally. One of this Government’s greatest legacies will be investment in areas that have been left behind for many years. In some cases, levelling up can mean direct investment and change to infrastructure, as we are pleased to see in Rother Valley with the Dinnington high street project and Maltby skills academy. However, providing books is undoubtably one of the simplest and most cost-efficient ways of improving the lives of 1.2 million children up and down the United Kingdom, giving them the best possible start to their lives and careers.

As was mentioned in the interventions, something that is becoming clearer is the fact that we must embrace technology in our pursuit of improving access to books. Across human history, the first true literacy revolution was the invention of scrolls and paper, allowing quicker, lighter and more accessible reading and writing away from the stone tablets of old. The second innovation was the printing press, bringing books and literacy to the people, as William Caxton did only a few hundred yards from where we sit today.

Many of us have lived through a similarly important revolution in the development of e-books and audiobooks, reinventing the way we read and get information. These new technologies will be game-changers for our children’s access to books and for how they read. E-books, which can be as simple a concept as a PDF saved on a phone or on any number of e-readers, allow for quick and free access to books, which was unattainable outside of a library just a few years ago. Not only can a phone or e-reader hold thousands of titles, it is nearly always cheaper than its printed counterparts, often for the simple reason of having next to no unit cost, meaning that they are far more accessible for younger readers in less well-off households. Indeed, many of the classic books that we may want our children to enjoy like we did are available online for free through sites like Project Gutenberg, which boasts over 70,000 e-books free to download, with titles from Marcus Aurelius to Sun Tzu—anything a child would want to read.

For children, there are other advantages to reading technology. A trial programme points to a huge uplift in reading enjoyment across the board when reading on screens. That is backed up by an increase in pupils’ reading outside school. Not only do children enjoy reading electronic devices, they enjoy it so much that they do it in their own time. It may be better for their development and preparedness for their careers, with jobs these days often involving reading text from a screen rather than a piece of paper.

Audiobooks should share the stage, given their proven results, encouraging those who might otherwise not read to do so. In the first instance, audiobooks have huge reach among younger readers. A 2022 survey tells us that 40% of those aged between 12 and 15 are regular users of audiobooks, whereas only 24% of those aged above 55 responded in the same way. What is more, audiobooks bridge disparities that we usually see in reading and writing among children. For example, the National Literacy Trust reports that listening is the only form in which boys have higher levels of engagement and enjoyment than girls. Audiobooks are an invaluable way of making books and the benefits that come with reading more accessible to those who might normally miss out.

Given that these new ways encourage reading and make books even easier than ever to access, how should we support them? As I mentioned, Yorkshire has the lowest rate of children’s book ownership, but given the ubiquity of smartphone and computer ownership and the availability of e-books and audiobooks, the answer is right there. We touched on some of the charitable endeavours in this area, and I am pleased to report that many other excellent charities are helping to spread e-book ownership, including from public libraries.

Increasing access to books means making them as accessible as possible. For more than 350,000 children with some form of learning difficulty, reading may present more of a challenge. How can reading for pleasure even be considered if reading is a constant struggle for these children? I have talked about how e-books and audiobooks greatly increase reading enjoyment, but that is especially true when looking at the impact on children with dyslexia or any other educational support needs, as well as those who simply struggle with reading. One in 10 children have some form of dyslexia. That should not be overlooked as an area that needs focus. Like other areas in life, technology can provide easy ways for many to overcome hurdles. In this case, e-books can be more beneficial than printed books, such as by being able to quickly change font or sizes or access the dictionary to find out the meaning of new or difficult words—a real step forward in helping those most in need of encouragement. The British Dyslexia Association has many excellent suggestions on how to help children with dyslexia to read and write, and agrees that e-books and other such technology are clear game changers for children with dyslexia.

As well as technology, another central suggestion is paired reading, which we have already talked about. A child and their parent reading together for 10 minutes a day is a perfect example. Unfortunately, when looking at the bigger picture, if 10% of children in my area do not own a book, and 10% of those children have dyslexia, that means that 1% of children—nearly 135,000 children across the UK—simply do not have the resources to overcome their learning difficulties, blighting their career and life prospects.

Over the course of this debate and the last, I have had a particular focus on younger children, such as those in primary school. That may be because of my own personal bias with my two daughters, Persephone and Charlotte. Unfortunately, however, it seems to me that the same is true of our education system, which focuses literacy education on younger children at the expense of older children. Over 75% of children aged between five and eight say that they enjoy reading, but sadly that number trends downwards over the next years of education, with only 45% of 14 to 16-year-olds saying the same. That means that somewhere in our schools children lose their passion for reading. Secondary school—for some, the last years of formal education—can be an invaluable time to fall in love with reading before life’s other worries take over. We must do more to encourage our teenagers to read and enjoy reading.

The point could be made that because so many forms of entertainment are instantly available to our children—and to teenagers in particular—we should do more to make books relevant and accessible. Here, again, we can look to technology to solve those issues. As I have mentioned, with e-books and audiobooks, children can have thousands of stories in their pocket, but how do we actually get them to open the e-books and read them? The rise of social media phenomena, such as bookstagram and BookTok, have undoubtedly led to more teenagers reading, with some books’ dustjackets now proudly marketing themselves as being TikTok favourites.

Social media platforms provide a social aspect to books, allowing users to give and receive recommendations from peers with similar interests, as well as connecting with those who have a passion for a genre or a series of books. The BookTok hashtag has over 143 billion views worldwide, with some of the most watched videos highlighting, for example, books by black British authors or what to put on a summer reading list. Those videos and social groups are reconnecting teenagers to books, albeit in a very different way from previous generations. It is engagement that should be encouraged, and helps to make books and reading as accessible as possible to teenagers. Whatever other concerns may plague social media, this is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with in the battle for teenage literacy.

Now that I have outlined the importance of better access and accessibility to books, how should we look to achieve that access for our children? The best way to manage it would be through a British book strategy, with the ultimate goal that every child should have many books of their own to cherish and enjoy at their leisure. That would work hand in hand with the overall education strategy, and complement both the Government’s education White Paper from last year and the Prime Minister’s numeracy campaign. I believe this debate will go some way towards outlining what might be contained in that strategy, and I make the following points to the Minister.

First, we must examine seriously the ways in which technology can help children gain access to books, rather than looking at technology as somehow at odds with reading. I have extolled the virtue and benefits of e-books and audiobooks, given their lower cost and the universal access technology capable of reading or listening to them. They must be front and centre of any book strategy. There are, of course, other ways in which technology can improve access to books that I have not had time to discuss, such as apps for public libraries or technological support for the teaching of phonics.

Secondly—and perhaps a related point—we must work to ensure that reading is not seen as a struggle or challenge for those children who find it more difficult than others. With the right processes, even those with the most severe learning disabilities can be shown the joy to be found in reading for pleasure and so reap the same benefits as those without such difficulties.

Finally, we cannot forget to continue to stress the importance of reading as children grow up. Perhaps, given the proven rewards, reading or library time should be a continued presence in our children’s timetable throughout their educational career, regardless of what they are studying, to prevent the terrible decline in reading enjoyment that we are currently seeing. Perhaps encouraging reading-friendly social media may help to give books relevance to our digital society, and help in removing the barriers between teenagers and reading. That is especially true for those leaving formal education as they turn 16.

In conclusion, the Government’s excellent schools White Paper promises to

“do more to ensure every child can access cornerstone literacy and…give them the tools to lead a happy, fulfilled and successful life.”

Better access to books is the simplest and best way to manage that. The only tools children need are the books themselves. We know that high literacy and more reading ensure longer, happier and more fulfilled lives, and there is no better way to achieve those things than to put a book in the hands of every child. Next year, World Book Day will be on 7 March, a date by which I hope every child will have a book of their own to celebrate it with—a book to love and to share with their friends and family.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I call Matt Rodda.