Reading Rights: Children's Laureate launches 'urgent roadmap' to tackle reading inequalities

Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce has launched a reading report with an 'urgent roadmap' to turn children's reading from 'an invisible privilege to a universal right' - and gives a stark warning about the consequences of continuing to neglect addressing the 'indefensible' reading inequality in the UK.

Cottrell-Boyce said: "Britain is not an equal society. 4.3 million children are growing up in poverty. When I was named Waterstones Children's Laureate, I knew I wanted to use my position to campaign for these children, the ones that are being left behind.

"I started the 'Reading Rights' campaign to highlight this indefensible inequality, but also to say that we can do something about it. We have an astonishingly powerful tool in our hands - shared reading. If you've been read to, as a child, by someone who cares about you, you have been given an enormous invisible privilege. If you haven't been given that privilege, then you've been left with an enormous mountain to climb."

The 'Reading Rights' Report calls on national and local leaders in early years, health, education and culture to come together to make reading a part of daily life for every child in the first seven years of life.

Diana Gerald, ceo of Booktrust which supports the Children's Laureate, said the vision needs "change and action". "To make early shared reading and storytelling an everyday part of all children's lives, we need policy, workforce training, research, investment and partnerships working at national and local levels."

The report focuses on five areas (see below) that will help turn the tide on the 'indefensible' reading inequality. These include plans for a place-based pilot 'City of Stories' that will create a reading blueprint that can be shared across other areas.

The report also puts forward a vision for early childhood reading and story-sharing across three key areas for improvement - reading for the best start in life, reading in nurseries and schools, and reading for children with experience of social care.

But it also comes with a warning from Frank Cottrell-Boyce: "If we vacate that space - where child and story meet, where human love slows the world down and makes it a bit more navigable - we will hand it to something that is not human, that will not slow down, that does not love us. We will be ceding the territory of calm and connecting to confusion, anxiety and fury. The mission is urgent. Childhood is fleeting. But the mission is also achievable. And it is full of joy."

About the 'Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future' Interim Report

The report follows Cottrell-Boyce's 'Reading Rights' Summit - held in January at St George's Hall, Liverpool - which brought together expert voices across the political, education, literacy, early years, arts, library and health sectors, as well as national and local government leaders including Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram and Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza.

The report resulting from the summit offers a comprehensive strategy for shared-reading as an early year's health and wellbeing intervention.

Delegates dissected three specific areas for improvement - the best start in life; nurseries and schools; and children with experience of social care. The report summarises the current context and challenges, and offers a vision of best practice and support that will change children's lives.

Five key areas of action have been identified for their potential to make tangible change: these will be the focus of BookTrust and Frank Cottrell-Boyce's activity over the next twelve months. A second 'Reading Rights' Summit will be held in early 2026, followed by a second 'Reading Rights' Report in Summer 2026, detailing progress over the following target areas:

1. Workforce training: Supporting all professionals and practitioners working with children and families in the early years to understand the benefits of early reading and to be confident sharing stories and showing parents and carers how to read with their children.
2. Policy, guidance and frameworks: Making sure that early childhood reading shows up in policy, guidance and frameworks - wherever it can make a difference.
3. Access to books: Making sure that children and families, early years professionals and practitioners, and community spaces, childcare settings and schools - all have access to high-quality books and reading-support resources, including books that are representative of the contemporary UK.
4. Sharing high-quality research and evidence: Sharing the evidence base about reading in the early years with everyone involved in supporting children and families during this phase, in ways that are clear and meaningful and will drive change.
5. Multi-agency leadership: Demonstrating the impact that early shared reading could make when effective practice is implemented in a coordinated manner by a wide range of local leaders across a community, city or wider area.

Diana Gerald MBE, CEO of BookTrust, said: "BookTrust has been working to get children and families reading for many decades, but we know that too many children are missing out on the immediate and lifelong benefits of early shared reading. 

"We want this report and campaign to unite us, inspire us and give focus to our shared commitment to improving children's lives. We invite everyone who cares about the health, wellbeing and happiness of children to join the Reading Rights campaign and help make a difference."

Alongside these areas of focus, Cottrell-Boyce and BookTrust have shared plans to build a 'City of Stories': a sustainable and replicable model that can be scaled across other regions. Further information will be announced on this in the following weeks.

The 'Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future': Three areas of focus

1. Best start in life
- Why does it matter? The first years of a child's life are critical for cognitive, emotional, and physical development. Shared reading helps children's emotional and social development: children who are read to from their earliest years are more likely to develop secure relationships with their caregivers and have better mental wellbeing, social skills. Shared reading routines also create positive habits - with a sense of security, comfort and structure - as well as helping children overcome socio-economic inequalities: those growing up in poverty have a better chance of moving out of poverty as adults if they are read to as young children.

What is the picture now? For the 36% of children aged 0-4 growing up in poverty, the barriers to being read to regularly through childhood can be hard to overcome. BookTrust research shows:
o 95% of carers and parents agree it is important to read with their child, but only 40% say a bedtime story is part of their normal routine.
o 49% do not have a library card.
o 30% say that reading isn't a big part of family life.
o 28% don't find reading with their child easy, while 21% lack confidence in choosing books their child will enjoy
o 38% don't read with their child due to lack of time.

What are the barriers? For adults who have grown up in homes without reading and books, shared reading is not associated with positive interactions and experiences of childhood. Reading can feel daunting, stressful or irrelevant and this is made worse when it is hard to find books which reflect the culture, life experiences, values and beliefs of our diverse society. Parents struggle with lack of time to read with their child, as well as the confidence to do so. Furthermore, not all homes have books.

The 'Reading Rights' vision:
o Early shared-reading takes place in all families, regardless of the barriers they are facing, and becomes part of all children's early experiences.
o Parents and carers are supported to enjoy reading with their children in ways that work for them, and which drive positive social, emotional and cognitive developmental outcomes.
o Local leaders, services, and networks join up to promote shared reading and storytelling everywhere as an effective developmental strategy and a wellbeing intervention in children's earliest years.
o Professionals working with families antenatally and in the first years of life understand the importance of shared-reading, and have the skills and capacity to support families to embed story sharing in early family life.

2. Nurseries and schools

Why does it matter? Story sharing should sit at the heart of a child's educational experience because the more children are read to the more likely they are to flourish and succeed academically, socially and emotionally. Shared reading develops children's communication skills, and children with good speech and language skills have better social skills and emotional wellbeing. Schools are crucial in developing positive attitudes to reading, and reading aloud and sharing stories supports happier, calmer learning environments. Storybooks promote new ways of thinking and making sense of the world.

What is the picture now? The systematic structured approach to reading set out in the English National Curriculum has created a generation of children who are amongst the most proficient readers in the world, but reading enjoyment is a different picture: only 29% of 10-year-olds in England, compared with 42% around the world say they like reading ‘very much'[2]. At the same time, the wellbeing benefits that reading offer are more important than ever before with the latest data showing currently 1 in 5 children have a probable mental health condition (around 6 children in each classroom) and that half of all mental health issues develop before age of 14.

What are the barriers? Access to high-quality books and reading support resources is a challenge for many early years settings, struggling with funding levels. Based on data gathered in 2022, 14% of primary schools do not have a library area. One in eight (81%) of primary teachers point to barriers they face in encouraging pupils to read for enjoyment. These barriers include resource challenges, such as lack of time to let children read (36%), lack of resources (10%), or lack of available books that pupils enjoy (18%).[4]

The 'Reading Rights' vision:
o Early education and care standards recognise the broad and foundational role that reading plays in children's wider development beyond literacy and curriculum outcomes.
o Early years professionals working in nurseries and schools have an excellent understanding of shared, interactive or dialogic reading, and the role it plays in developing children's language skills, social and emotional development and cognitive capacity.
o All nurseries and schools are equipped and supported to ensure all children experience regular reading for enjoyment through access to expertise, high-quality books and reading resources.
o Nurseries and schools promote the benefits of shared reading to parents so that children and families enjoy reading together at home.

3. Children with experience of social care

Why does it matter? Shared reading can be especially transformative for babies and children who have had early relationships disrupted, or experienced trauma, abuse or neglect. Books create connections and help to build trust, as well as providing routine, structure and predictability. They support identity development alongside promoting an enhanced sense of wellbeing.

What is the picture now? The costs of children's social care are high and growing, against a backdrop of declining spend on early intervention services. The number of looked after children as a proportion of the UK child population is also growing. Children with experience of the care system and those with experience of kinship care are more likely to have SEND: for example research by Kinship shows that 31% of children in kinship care have diagnosed or suspected social, emotional or mental health needs[5], plus children in care have poorer educational outcomes on average than other children, including being less likely to meet age-related expectations in reading[6].

What are the barriers? Foster parents, kinship carers and adoptive families can all struggle to get the support they need, and that would best support the children they care for. Being able to find representative and relatable books is important to families, but they need help to find and access them. The expectation of creating an idealised calm storytime experience can feel daunting, with support required to help families find what works for them and their children. Social workers often see the value of reading and love being able to provide books but can struggle to find time and resource for this given pressure of workload and competing professional priorities.

The 'Reading Rights' vision:
o Research into the impact and value of shared-reading to children with experience of the social care system makes clear the benefits of early shared reading experiences for bonding and attachment, stability and identity.
o Professionals working with children and families in foster care, kinship care and adoption understand the importance of shared reading as a strategy to use alongside specialist interventions for building trust and relationships, overcoming trauma and providing a safe space for young children.
o Services and organisations working with children with experience of social care are helped to integrate shared-reading strategies into training and support.
o Families are provided with high-quality books and resources which meet the needs of care-experienced children, and are given the support they want and need to enjoy sharing stories with the children in their care.

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