A recent study found less than half of children are read to daily, according to an article in The 74.
Earlier this year, HarperCollins UK released a report showing a steep decline in the number of caregivers who read to their young children.
Many new parents dislike reading due to their own classroom experiences in the early 2000s that emphasized reading as a skill for testing. Many are unaware of the importance of reading to young children. And the prevalence of online educational programs may have undervalued the importance of reading.
Children not being read to at home enter school more unprepared compared to those who have been read to – what is called an “opportunity gap.”
“I think we underestimate how large a gap we’re already seeing in kindergarten,” says Susan Neuman, professor of childhood and literacy education at New York University. She recently visited a New York City kindergarten classroom where some children only knew two letters compared to others who were prepared to read phrases.
A 5-year-old child who is read to daily is exposed to nearly 300,000 more words than one who isn’t read to regularly, according to a 2019 Ohio State University study.
Less than half (about 41%) of children between the age of zero to four were read to every day or nearly every day, according to the 2025 HarperCollins survey. This is a decline of nine percentage points from 2019 and 15 percentage points in 2012.
About a third of parents read to their babies and toddlers weekly. Around 20% of parents said they “rarely” or “never” read to their child between the ages of zero and two and 8% of parents said they “rarely” or “never” read to their child between the ages of three and four.
Some of the youngest parents, those born between 1997 and 2012 (Gen-Z) are more likely to view reading as a school or work activity rather than something fun or beneficial, according to the HarperCollins survey and early literacy experts.
The No Child Left Behind Act, which mandated annual standardized testing in the early 2000s, took the pleasure out of reading and instilled a shift toward “skill and drill,” practices, says Theresa Bouley, an education professor at Eastern Connecticut State University.
“At that time, we started using less books, more programs, more skill and drill and the purpose of reading only became learning different aspects of reading, like phonics — not actually for purpose or pleasure,” she says.
Losing the value of reading can have crucial consequences on the youngest emerging students’ social-emotional health, cognitive development and future literacy skills.
“Children are not seeing their caregivers actually reading books and that sends a really strong message. … As a three year old boy, [they] want to do what dad’s doing,” Bouley says. “I think it’s equally important … [for a] child’s understanding of the purpose and joy of reading to see their parent reading.”
Why does reading to the youngest children matter?
The activity “is a lot more than just reading and reading books,” Bouley says. Reading aloud creates a foundation for literacy, she says.
Studies show reading aloud helps children develop communication and fine motor skills and also promote oral language skills — a strong predictor in success in school.
“Shared reading does predict child vocabulary prior to school entry, and vocabulary predicts later emerging literacy skills, says Rebecca Parlakian, senior programs director at Zero to Three, an early childhood nonprofit. “The quantity or frequency of parent-child book reading also predicted children’s receptive vocabulary — the words they understand — their reading comprehension skills and their desire to read,” she says.
A study released in August found that reading aloud to a child at eight months old was linked to language skills at 12 and 16 months, “so even infants being exposed to ongoing rich language made a difference,” Parlakian says.
Books also support “social-emotional skills because children are being exposed to the feelings and motivations of characters other than themselves,” she adds.
Having a positive association with books, without the pressure of assessments or skill tests, allows young children to understand the value and fun of reading.
But reading for pleasure is becoming a lost art, according to the article. Reading in schools has become performance-based activity or test preparation.
In general, reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% between 2003 and 2023, according to a 2025 study from the University of Florida and University College London.
It’s unclear whether levels of reading with children have changed over time, according to the study, but it did find only 2% of its participants read with children “on the average day,” despite 21% of the study’s sample having a child under nine years old.
Declining literacy levels are also attributed to the rise of the internet and accessibility to portable devices. A study released earlier this year reported about 35% of parents said some of the biggest challenges in reading to children is that the child prefers screen-time or won’t sit long enough.
“When we introduce screen time very young, and we don’t manage the amount of time children are spending on screens, … it can be difficult for children to transition from such an exciting medium to a medium like a book that may initially feel not as exciting,” Parlakian says.
Another consequence: A lack of reading time with a parent possibly means losing bonding time. With a tablet, a parent can hand it off and walk away, Bouley says, but when it comes to reading a book, it demands a parent’s full presence.
Reading also requires stamina — and educational programs on tablets or other devices instead offer instant gratification, Neuman says.
“A good storybook often takes a bit of time to develop. … There’s literary language that children are learning, … and games are very colloquial, they’re very short term and they’re bits of information that don’t connect,” she says. “Children aren’t developing comprehension, … even when they begin to learn the print, what we’re seeing is they don’t know the meaning of the print, and that’s a big problem.”
Adopting early reading practices for one family described in the article means comprehension hasn’t been a problem for their five-year-old, who points out the words he knows in his children’s Bible, or in his other favorites like Little Blue Truck or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
“He can read almost a whole page by himself. He gets really excited and he has to go around and show his dad or we’ve got to FaceTime and show his mamaw,” says his mother. “He wants everybody to see he knows how to read.”
The 74
