Conclusion 5

Beyond screen time, there are myriad other pressures on childhood restricting the opportunities for children to read, and for parents to read with their children. England is lagging so far behind the international average that we cannot place the blame solely on screens. The pressures of the cost of living and modern work patterns mean that many parents and carers do not have the time and capacity to share books with their children at home. For children living in poverty, the inability to access the essentials can be a huge barrier to enjoying books. Work to address the decline must therefore be multi-faceted and look more broadly at the evidence on what works and how parents and carers, teachers and other school staff, early years practitioners, library staff and the literary industry can reverse the decline. (Conclusion, Paragraph 28)