Children’s reading ‘improves faster with ebooks’

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In addition, twice as many boys said at the end of the period that reading was “cool” - 66.5 per cent compared with 34.4 per cent prior to the start of the study. open image in gallery The research was one of the first and largest studies to explore the effect ebooks have on reading habits among children A survey of 30,032 children alongside the study showed 88.6 per cent said they read using technology. “The study clearly shows that the impact ebooks can have on reading enjoyment, particularly for boys, goes well beyond the novelty of a new reading format,” said Irene Picton, research manager at the National Literacy Trust. “The stigma of reading has been removed and the pupils are actually sharing their experiences with their friends across the school and creating somewhat of a ‘reading frenzy’ which is fantastic.” The gap between the performance of boys and girls can be seen as early as seven - and successive governments have ploughed millions of pounds into trying to solve the problem of boys’ writing and reading standards, including launching a “boys into books” scheme which introduced more fact-based books to read into the classroom and a “reading champions” scheme in which Premier League footballers spoke of their favourite books.