Literacy Stats … While You Wait

Literacy Stats … While You Wait

A poll commissioned by Teletext in 2007 questioned 4,000 adult readers on their reading habits. The survey found the top

10 fiction books that Britons cannot finish are:

1) Vernon God Little, D.B.C Pierre (35%)2) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K Rowling (32%)3) Ulysses, James Joyce (28%)4) Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres (27%)5)

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (24%)6) The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie (21%)7) The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (19%)8) War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (18%)9) The God of Small Things,

Arundhati Roy (16%)10) Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky (15%)

Source: National Literacy Trust


In a survey of 2,000 adults, a third had not bought a new book in the previous 12 months. 34% said they

did not read books. (Expanding the Market, Book

Marketing Ltd, 2004)



In June 2002, the ONS Omnibus survey included a module on reading habits

commissioned by the National Reading Campaign.

It found that nearly half of adults had read at least five books or more in the previous

12 months, with almost one in five claiming to have read 20 books or more.



A survey of 4,000 people for the Raw Literacy Campaign (2006) found that

reading was an important activity for 79%, more popular than sex (69%), TV (67%) or

computer games (15%). However, although 82% of the population say they enjoy their reading, a significant proportion say they

do not (17%).



A survey of 1,000 people for Bedtime Reading Week 2002 found the most

popular place to read was in bed (65% of the sample). 25% relax with a book in the bath, 10% take a book to the loo (mainly men), almost half like to read on holiday and a third read on the journey to work.

Over a third of those interviewed said they wish they had more time to read.



A report for the 2008 National Year of Reading showed that 45% of teenagers

have been told off by an adult for enjoying something that is not deemed to be

‘proper reading’.



A report for the 2008 National Year of Reading showed that: 62% of teens say

that they have liked reading something so much they have passed it on to a friend or family member; Harry Potter still features in the top 10, it also appears at number 8

least loved read; Boys are particularly practical in their approach, with 31%

saying that they love reading because it helps them get better at their hobbies (e.g.

sports, films or music).Source: National Literacy Trust


In 2006, a survey by Bounty family marketing found that one third of children

are never read a bedtime story by their parents.

However, the survey also showed that 62% of parents do read to their children,

despite a quarter of those having never been read to as children



Nine out of ten mothers say they read to their offspring at least once a week. 70% say they do so every day.

(Mori 1999)



2006-7 Library Statistics

UK’s most borrowed children’s author: Jacqueline WilsonThe five authors with over 1 million loans:1. James Patterson2. Jacqueline

Wilson3. Daisy Meadows4. Josephine Cox5. Nora Roberts



Only 5.2 million adults (16% of the adult population) would fail to pass an English GCSE in autumn 2003 -

compared with slightly more than 7 million (20% of adult population) indicated in the Moser report in

1999.



In 2003, the DfES found that 29% of adults - as many as 11 million people - could not calculate

the area of a floor, in either square feet or metres. More than 10% were unable to understand the

instructions on a packet of seeds. And less than a third of people managed to work out the amount of plastic covering needed to line a pond - even

with a calculator, pen and paper. (Source: BBC News website, 1 May 2003)



Nearly four out of 10 adults in some parts of England cannot read or write properly or do

simple sums according to a Basic Skills Agency's report in May 2000. This report came a year after the agency's chairman Sir Claus Moser's report, which described the serious problem of 20% of

adults being "functionally illiterate". A reinterpretation of the Moser data put the

national average even higher, at 24% - rising to nearly 40% in some areas. On average, 15% have low literacy, 5% have lower literacy and 4% have

very low literacy.



Across Europe around 10% of the population falls into the low skills category; in Britain the figure is

over 20%: eight million people are so poor at reading and writing that they cannot cope with

the demands of modern life.(Source: International Adult Literacy Survey, 1998)


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Literacy Stats … While You Wait