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Three in 10 households do not contain a book
01.06.11 | Bookseller Staff
Three in 10 children live in households that do not contain a single book, according to a new survey.
Both the Daily Mail and Evening Standard reported on figures from the National Literacy Trust. The Mail reported the study found almost 40% of those aged eight to 17 live in homes with fewer than 10 books. However, 85% of those aged eight to 15 own a games console and 81% have a mobile phone.
The Evening Standard focused on results from London, which revealed one in three children do not have a book of their own at home. The paper is publishing a week of articles focusing on illiteracy in the capital.
Former Ofsted director Sir Jim Rose, author of several reports on literacy, says: "We are in serious trouble. We have entered the era of the Argos catalogue family, those with no books of their own at home. We need to do something urgently. It is a responsibility we cannot afford to shirk."
Researcher Christina Clark polled 18,171 eight to 17 year olds across 111 UK schools.
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- 1 in 3 London children don't own a book - ie their families can't or won't buy them
- School library budgets have been slashed. My local primary's 'library' is a single box of books.
- Ofsted doesn't take library provision into account when rating schools, and the National Curriculum emphasised reading little chunks of text instead of sitting down with books - so there is no immediate incentive to schools to find the money to buy books.
- London councils are shutting libraries.
Where exactly are these children supposed to learn to read? This is a national disgrace, and we are all going to suffer for it when these children grow up unemployable, excluded and angry.
I shouldnt worry too much about it, it's in the Mail and it's sensationalist so it's almost certainly not true.
Ironic that the report should refer to "the Argos catalogue family", when Argos has just started selling books.
This is of course the position after the Labour spending party and before the cuts actually hit . So this defines a problem outside of just money doesn't it ?
By the way are you aware that the u.k cuts programme is -2.2%of GDP [2010-12] and the European average is -2.4% with Ireland at -22.7%, Spain -3.8%, Portugal -3.0%. Even Germany is -2.5%. [Source OECD]
Might I suggest that, if this is the case, it would be best to maintain abd even increase collections of books in public libraries and to keep the libraries open, rather than close them.
Nerd - it's not the Mail, it's the National Literacy Trust, and therefore likely to be true and very much worth worrying about.
Frankly I don't believe these data - the methodology is highly suspect, and contradicts information on the numbers of people buying new and/or used books, and the number of people who read without buying.
Are we really putting any faith in something that was
A) in the Daily Mail
and B) has such dubious reliability?
I don't know anyone who took part in this poll, for a start...
I am against the Library cuts, but if these families don't own any books I can't really see them using the library?
The source of the survey is given as the National Literacy Trust in line 5 of the article, and repeated several comments above yours. I'm fast reaching the conclusion that illiteracy in this country is even more widespread than the survey suggests.
How can households not have books!
My daughter has always been encouraged to read and has a great love of books, and now at University still reads a lot of fiction, as well as the books required for her course.
No wonder so many children leave school illiterate, if thier parents do not encourage reading at home.
Having worked full time during my daughters formative years, with very little free time, every day we spent time together, either for me to read to her or for her to read to me! This started whilst she was still in her cot being read a bedtime story.
I do understand that some families cannot afford books and closing libraries will not help the literacy rates, but I expect most of these households will have spent vast sums on console games which have no educational value at all.
Sadly I agree. People who don't value books are hardly likely to bother making a trip to the local library - the clientele of my nearest branch are solidly middle class.
When I was a bookseller, the one thing that I felt made a difference was going to schools - either selling the cheap WBD titles or bringing an author to talk about their work. If you can get children excited about reading at a young age, before peer pressure pushes them in the other direction, there is hope. I met quite a few Jacqueline Wilson fans whose parents didn't read, but they'd started reading the books because their friends liked them.
I'd like to see schools establish stronger links with local libraries - I know it happens in some towns, but my son's school have been once in five years.
Dont say some families can't afford books .
£1 in Oxfam or on the market ?It's about the LACK OF PROFILE of books and reading not where they were acquired that matters here .
Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks to me as if the headline and first paragraph here aren't backed up by the figures in the report itself. It says that 3 in 10 children don't own their own books, but only 9.4% of those children live in households where there are no books at all. So as far as I can see the real figure from the research is that only 2.86% of children live in households without books (and the research says nothing about households without children).
While I appreciate all that you have said in your post, and applaud your passion, I must disagree that *ALL* videogames have no educational value. My brothers were not interested in reading at all, but my mother encouraged them to play text heavy rpg (role playing) and adventure video games, which they greatly enjoyed. It taught them to read through a medium they enjoyed. My parents read to us all but my brothers would pursue video games of their own accord. Now, they are giddy readers. Video games are not worthless; no story telling, immersive medium is made inherently worthless purely by its format.
*N.B. by 'giddy', which I appreciate may be confusing, I mean they enjoy, are passionate about and pursue reading as a pass time. Not wonky :)
how many didn't own books but had an e-reader?
Perhaps we should promote a book at bedtime??
I bet that there is not a single example of a family with an E reader that does not have a book in the house .
The evidence is very firm - A more complete article from the Guardian makes it clare that 18,000 (!) children were surveyed - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/01/three-in-10-uk-children-own-...
It was front page (and 2 pages inside) of the London Evening Standard today too.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23955155-london-city-of-c...
I would agree that the problem here is the lack of oomph in the families. As a librarian I would naturally want more resources to promote the value of reading to families - I go into schools and big up libraries a lot.
I still remember getting a group of kids excited about libraries (yes, it is possible to do this) and then leaving at the same time as parents picked up kids. I listened as a child asked "daddy! can we go the library?" and the dad answered "Huh! What do you wanna go into there for?" and the matter rested. Still kick myself for not turning around and talking to him but the tone of his voice was so clearly not interested.
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