The Essential Role Educators Play in Nurturing Reading for Fun

With reading enjoyment at an all-time low, it’s more important than ever to get young people excited about reading for fun. When we do, we unlock all the proven benefits it brings, including better wellbeing and improved learning across the school curriculum.

This year, World Book Day is on Thursday 6th March and our charity’s 2025 ‘Read Your Way’ message will encourage more children and young people to find the fun in reading.

When it comes to home or non-school reading, we want to encourage everyone to let go of any pressures and expectations. Working together with you as educators, we want to empower children, young people and the adults around them to have fun discovering reading on their own terms.

Reading for fun really matters. It’s the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. But it’s at crisis point, with only one in three children now saying they enjoy reading (National Literacy Trust 2024). World Book Day’s own research shows that children see reading as something they have to do, rather than something they choose to do.​

Choice is the key word here, because if children are given more autonomy over what, how and where they read, they are more likely to find the joy in it and go on to develop their own reading identity, and a longer-term, life-enhancing habit.

Several reasons play into why children might not enjoy reading. Our research shows that children are increasingly associating reading with learning or homework. Others struggle to find books they connect to or characters they relate to, while many say they feel judged about their reading choice – especially if an adult said a book was too young or unsuitable.

Teachers and support staff play a huge role in helping children find the fun in reading, and there are many wonderful examples of a strong reading for pleasure culture in classrooms up and down the country. After immediate family members, teachers are the most influential adults in nurturing children’s enjoyment, showing pupils that reading can be fun, and extend well beyond the school gates.

By starting with what interests their students, teachers and support staff help children see the vast range of possibilities that reading offers. Whether students read for adventure or escapism, for a sense of personal connection, or to simply discover the world around them, we can build on their varied interests by offering a wide range of reading materials, offering personalised book recommendations, and creating dynamic and interactive reading experiences.

This approach engages children on their own terms as readers. It helps them to overcome those barriers of expectation and judgement and see themselves as readers. It’s about creating a space where reading is celebrated and shaped by individual preferences and interests, and always has the potential for fun and discovery.

Our evidence shows there are six building elements which support a child to read for pleasure, which shape and guide everything World Book Day does.​

• Being read to regularly​

• Having books at home and at school​

• Having a choice in what to read​

• Finding time to read​

• Having trusted help to find a book​

• Making reading FUN!

This World Book Day, we encourage teachers and support staff to join in with ‘Read Your Way’, however it works for you and your students.

From discovering different ways of reading, through comic books, graphic novels and audiobooks, or by participating in book exchanges, or hosting book clubs, or by dressing up as characters or books they enjoy (click here for lots of affordable dressing up ideas). There are lots of ideas and assets to support you at worldbookday.com/educators/

As a charity, we at World Book Day continue to offer every child a book of their own. Shockingly, more than one million children in the UK do not have a single book of their own at home, with World Book Day’s £1 books often being the first book many children will own . In 2024, one in four children receiving Free School Meals said their £1book was the first they had ever owned (National Literacy Trust 2024).

As educators, you can play a vital role in tacking this growing problem. Together let’s champion the fun of reading, because it seriously improves lives.

- Cassie Chadderton, CEO, World Book Day