ABSTRACT
The quantitative data collected in this, and other recent larger surveys, indicate that there has been a significant shift in reading habits since the last adequately funded national survey (Whitehead et al., 1975). It is important, therefore, that a detailed survey of children’s current literacy practices is undertaken to identify areas for the focus of specific national development. Such a study would also need to take cognizance of the difference between pupils’ reading as accessed by means of questionnaires and conventional school reading records, which rely on pupils recording titles of book and magazine, and the actual amount and range of reading uncovered through individual interview or structured classroom observation. There has been some replication of Whitehead’s work by a team of researchers at Nottingham University who employed his methodology of focusing of a single month’s reading in a large sample of 11-14-year-olds. The resulting interim report concluded that there had been little decline in the amount children read. These results, however, remain inconclusive because the research does not distinguish clearly between the number of titles recorded and the time spent reading them. The evidence from the very much smaller survey I have reported in Chapters 3 and 4 of this book, suggests that pupils do not always discriminate between having read a book and having accessed a narrative by means of another form such as an audio cassette or video recording.
