Why reading is the most important factor in your child's future success

We, as parents, want to do what we can to prepare our kids for whatever the future holds. As parents, carers or educators, we want to make sure that they have every chance of success.

We make sure they are keeping on top of their studies, working hard at school and doing their homework. We make sure that they take the options process seriously and help them find out more about what career they may want to go into. We ensure they revise for their exams and do the best that we can to support them. And that’s all that we can do, isn’t it?

But do we do enough to make sure they are reading? That they have a positive attitude to reading?

As a teacher, I have sat with parents who clearly want their child to do well, and they are supporting their child in every way they can think of to make sure that they have as many opportunities as possible.

But their child is not a reader.

What I mean by that is that their child can read, to a certain extent, but they don’t read often, they read no more than they have to.

And when I tell them that the best thing they can do for their child is not to buy more revision guides, or sign up for online resources, or hire a tutor, it is to read more, they look at me, perplexed.

We need to wake up, as parents, as carers, as educators and realise that reading is vital to the development of all children, making sure we prepare them for life after school, whether that is further and higher education or their future career.

Many people think that reading is just an English thing. They believe that the reading of books only serves our young people in their progress in English. This attitude is so misplaced.

We can see reading to have a tremendous impact on a child’s academic success across all of their subjects, not just in English. Reading underpins success at GCSE, A level and degree level, as well as their future career development.

And that’s not all.

Research shows that reading is a powerful tool in combatting mental health problems, developing empathy and compassion, fostering resilience and determination as well as broadening cultural capital.

It is time to see reading and the fostering of a love of reading in young people as fundamental to their success and wellbeing for the rest of their lives.

Academic Success

Readers do better at school and in further education. This is an irrefutable fact. The average reading age of their GCSE exams is 15 years and 7 months. This is the level of reading the students need to be at to just access all of their papers.

According to a variety of sources, the average reading age for a 16-year-old in the UK is between 10 and 12 years old.

The current system is setting them up to fail. It matters not how much exam intervention schools put in if this fundamental skill is neglected. A massive proportion of students, somewhere between 20% and 25% haven’t got the reading skills to even access their exams.

Are we prepared to let this continue? Are we prepared to set our young people up to fail?

It will come as no surprise that most of these students are boys, with the gender gap only getting bigger.

Schools need to see reading interventions as a vital cog in the wheel of preparing young people for their exams, their further education and their careers. They need to recognise that the single most influential factor for academic success is reading.

‘The act of reading, particularly engaged reading, as opposed to the mechanics of reading, is a powerful predictor of life success by any measure. It is the best predictor of who goes to university regardless of socio-economic background. It is the best predictor of life income, career options, even life partner choices. And neuroscience is proving that reading fiction is one of the most powerful means of developing sympathetic individuals, with better social skills and higher levels of self-esteem, resulting in increasing self-improvement and pro-social behaviours.‘

EdCan

So disregard the power of reading at your peril. Getting your child into the habit now, when they are young, will not only increase their chances of academic success, but it will also set the foundation for further academic success and success in their career.

Career Success

Young people who read well, on average, do better in life. We need to look at reading as an important life skill that will serve our children now and for the next 40 or 50 years in the chosen career paths.

The average person will change careers 5–7 times during their working life according to career change statistics. With an ever-increasing number of career choices, 30% of the workforce will now change careers or jobs every 12 months. (Jenny Garrett)

Many children will not even be aware of the career path that they will follow in the future, so we need to see reading as even more important than the subjects they choose to study as they get older. The employment landscape is changing so quickly that the only certainty we can cling to is that they will need the reading skills we can instil in them while they are still young. The skills of decoding, comprehension, analysis, evaluation, prediction, summation and empathy.

With this foundation of reading and the inherent skills it helps them develop, it will fully prepare children to succeed in their chosen career path, whatever that may be.

“85% of the jobs that today’s learners will be doing in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.”

IFTF Report

Cultural Capital

Alongside the impact that reading can have on academic success and career success, reading can also broaden a child’s cultural understanding of the world in which they live. They can contextualise all the facts and information that are being poured into them through their academic studies. This serves to help them understand the ideas and concepts they are studying better through stories about people and places. As humans, we engage better with ideas and concepts if we link them to feelings and emotions.

Reading a book set during World War 2 reinforces the factual information that a child has learned. Reading a novel set on the African savannah develops an understanding of ecosystems and how they work. Reading Animal Farm gives students a human and emotional understanding of tyrannical dictatorships. This connection between the factual and the emotional strengthens their understanding of what they have learned, enabling them to grasp the concepts more readily and recall them more easily.

With fiction, young people can travel to any period in history, experience any major event that has ever happened, and experience life in a myriad of societies, understanding them so much better because of the human connection, the emotional connection with the characters.

This cultural capital that reading gives children is priceless. When widely read young people go out into the world, they can connect with what is going on so much easier. Apart from making them more desirable potential employees in such a competitive job market, they can affect change, learn from the mistakes of others and become better and more well informed global citizens.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Never has the mental health and wellbeing of our young people been under the spotlight so intensely. With the rising proliferation of mental health issues, compounded by social media and other pressures, our children, more than ever, need our help.

Students feel the pressure of academic success, which is piled on them from the moment they enter secondary education. Exam pressure, peer pressure, pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, think a certain way.

But research shows that reading can really help young people feel connected again, feel listened to, understood and less isolated.

An online poll of over four thousand people from a representative sample in the UK revealed that regular readers for pleasure reported fewer feelings of stress and depression than non-readers, and stronger feelings of relaxation from reading than from watching television or engaging with technology-intensive activities.

Through fiction, children can find solace. They can find comfort. Because there is no problem that a child is experiencing that hasn’t been written about. No problem is unique and through stories, children can find a connection and feel understood.

Studies have shown that those who read for pleasure have higher levels of self-esteem and a greater ability to cope with difficult situations. Reading for pleasure was also associated with better sleeping patterns.

They found readingThey found reading to help students relax, stay calm and, by releasing melatonin, sleep well. If we foster a love of reading in our children, we are preparing them better for life in the 21st century. We are providing them with a tool to combat the pressures of everyday life.

A report from the Reading Agency uncovered some powerful evidence to support the benefits of reading for pleasure:

19% of readers say that reading stops them from feeling lonely. This is backed up by a study analysing social connectedness, which found that reading books significantly reduces feelings of loneliness for people aged 18–64.

Participation in shared reading groups is linked to enhanced relaxation, calmness, concentration, quality of life, confidence and self-esteem, as well as feelings of shared community and common purpose.

Higher literacy skills are associated with a range of positive societal benefits, including having a stronger sense of belonging to society and being more likely to trust others.

Studies have found that reading for pleasure enhances empathy, understanding of the self, and the ability to understand one’s own and others’ identities. For example, reading Harry Potter has been shown to improve children’s attitudes toward stigmatized groups such as immigrants, refugees, and members of the LGBT community.

Reading as a vital life skill

I understand it is becoming increasingly difficult to foster a love of reading in young people. They have so many distractions and so many pressures. As a parent, I know it was much easier for me when I was growing up to become a reader. It was just something I found — I wasn’t really encouraged to do it. And I feel so lucky.

But even though it is difficult, we still need to do what we can.

If we don’t, we are not preparing our children for life in the mid-21st century. We are not giving them the tools and skills to be a success, to stay happy and healthy, to understand the world in which they live, to become better people and better citizens.

If we do, we can be confident that our children will not only survive, they will thrive.

Paul Brunson, international entrepreneur and lifestyle coach, cites habit and wealth creation Tom Corley’s research into reading, stating:

“If you choose to read — and I’m talking rigorous reading — you are going to climb your ladder faster and higher; you’re going to make more money; you’re going to have more influence; you’re going to create a bigger impact; and, most importantly to me, you’re going to create a powerful legacy.”