Teenage boys are \u201cstuck\u201d reading primary school books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while girls their age are moving on to a wider range of novels, according to a new study.<\/p>\n
Among the boys aged 11 to 14 who were surveyed, eight of the 10 most read books were from Jeff Kinney\u2019s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Girls\u2019 reading was spread across a wider range of authors and genres including Alice Oseman\u2019s Heartstopper, Holly Jackson\u2019s A Good Girl\u2019s Guide to Murder and Suzanne Collins\u2019 The Hunger Games.<\/p>\n
The findings, published in the annual What Kids Are Reading report<\/a> by the education technology company Renaissance, demonstrate the extent to which boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 reading choices \u201cpull apart\u201d by the time they reach key stage 3.<\/p>\n The report analysed more than 23m reading quizzes completed by almost 1.1 million children in schools across the UK and Ireland during the 2024-25 academic year.<\/p>\n Researchers suggest the pattern reflects broader differences in reading habits outside school. Previous research by the National Literacy Trust<\/a> found that by ages 14 to 16, less than 10% of boys read daily in their spare time compared with 18% of girls.<\/p>\n Dedicated reading time at school often declines sharply after primary education. A separate Renaissance survey found that only 28% of secondary schools set aside at least 15 minutes a day for reading, compared with 62% of primary schools.<\/p>\n Bernadetta Brzyska, Renaissance\u2019s head of research, said: \u201cChildren read best when they read what they love \u2026 This is not an argument against popular series. Familiar authors and box-set fiction pull reluctant readers in. The question is what comes next. Pupils who are steered towards new authors and harder books carry on reading while those left on the same series tend to stall.\u201d<\/p>\n The report also found that pupils demonstrated stronger comprehension when reading books they had chosen themselves, scoring an average of 92% on quizzes about their favourite titles compared with 76% across all books.<\/p>\n Martin Galway, head of professional learning and partnerships at the National Literacy<\/a> Trust, said: \u201cThe growing gap we see in secondary school, particularly for teenage boys, is a clear call to action. Too many young people are \u2018stuck\u2019 or disengaging from reading altogether, often because they have not yet found books that feel relevant, accessible or inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n The findings come during the government\u2019s National Year of Reading campaign,<\/a> which has identified teenage boys as one of the groups most in need of support after reading enjoyment among children fell to its lowest level on record last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most-read books in years 7 to 9: boys<\/p>\n 1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Most-read books in years 7 to 9: girls<\/p>\n 1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown
10. The Hunger Games<\/p>\n
2. The Hunger Games
3. Heartstopper Volume 1
4. A Good Girl\u2019s Guide to Murder
5. The Extremely Embarrassing Life of Lottie Brooks
6. Heartstopper Volume 2
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
8. The Catastrophic Friendship Fails of Lottie Brooks
9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
10. Lottie Brooks\u2019s Totally Disastrous School Trip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenage boys are \u201cstuck\u201d reading primary school books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while girls their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}