Teenage young boys are”stuck “checking out primary school books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while girls their age are carrying on to a broader series of books, according to a new study.Among the boys aged 11 to 14 who were surveyed, eight of the 10 most check out books were from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Women’reading was spread out throughout a larger series of authors and categories including Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, Holly Jackson’s An Excellent Woman’s Guide to Murder and Suzanne Collins’The Hunger Games.The findings, released in the yearly What Kids Read report by the education innovation company Renaissance, show the degree to which boys’and girls’reading options “pull apart” by the time they reach key stage 3. The report evaluated more than 23m reading quizzes finished by almost 1.1 million
children in schools across the UK and Ireland during the 2024-25 academic year.Researchers recommend the pattern shows more comprehensive distinctions in reading habits outdoors school. Previous research study by the
National Literacy Trust found that by ages 14 to 16, less than 10%of young boys read daily in their spare time compared with 18 %of girls.Dedicated reading time at school typically declines sharply after primary education. A separate Renaissance survey found that just 28%of secondary schools reserved a minimum of 15 minutes a day for reading, compared with 62%of main schools.Bernadetta Brzyska, Renaissance’s head of research, stated:”Kid read best when they read what they enjoy … This is not an argument versus popular series. Familiar authors and box-set fiction pull unwilling readers in.
The question is what follows. Students who are guided towards new authors and more difficult books carry on reading while those left on the exact same series tend to stall. “The report also discovered that students showed stronger comprehension when reading books they had actually selected themselves, scoring an average of 92%on quizzes about their favourite titles compared with 76 %throughout all books.Martin Galway, head of expert knowing and collaborations at the National Literacy Trust, said:”The growing space we see in secondary school, especially for teenage kids, is a clear call to action. Too many youths are’stuck ‘or disengaging from checking out entirely, typically
due to the fact that they have actually not yet discovered books that feel relevant, available or motivating.”The findings come during the federal government’s National Year of Reading project, which has actually recognized teenage boys as one of the groups most in need of assistance after reading pleasure amongst children fell to its lowest level on record last year.Most-read books in years 7 to 9: boys 1. Journal of a Wimpy Kid 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Trip 3. Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone 4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules 5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw 6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days 7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer 8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Fact 9.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Crisis 10. The Cravings Games Most-read books in years 7 to 9: girls 1. Harry Potter and the Theorist’s Stone
2. The Cravings Games 3. Heartstopper Volume 1 4. A Good Lady’s Guide to Murder 5. The Extremely Awkward Life of Lottie Brooks 6. Heartstopper Volume 2 7. Journal of a Wimpy Kid 8. The Catastrophic Relationship Stops Working of Lottie Brooks 9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
10. Lottie Brooks’s Completely Dreadful School
Trip