Booktrust launches the ‘Get Dads Reading’ campaign

Only one in eight dads take the lead with

reading to their children

 

25% of fathers blame working late for not reading to their children

 

HRH, The Duchess of Cornwall and bestselling author, James Patterson, mark launch of campaign with visit to dads’ reading group in the Royal Borough of Greenwich

 

UK’s leading reading charity Booktrust launches the ‘Get Dads Reading’ campaign and challenges dads to match mums in reading with their children

 

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UK dads trail far behind their partners when it comes to reading to their children. A new poll, carried out for Booktrust by Opinium, reveals that just 13% are the main reader with their child, with a quarter of fathers saying that the demand for them to work late means that they do not have time to read together more often. 

 

These findings are a major concern as a father’s involvement in their child’s early reading is proven to boost academic success, leading to improved social and emotional wellbeing. To fight this crisis Booktrust is launching a major campaign to raise awareness of the importance of dads as reading role models for their children.

 

Further research, commissioned by Booktrust from the Institute of Education, sheds more light on this hidden crisis. A series of in-depth interviews reveals that many fathers see reading as a female domain, and are working in isolation, rather than sharing practices and drawing on the networks available to mothers. When they do read to their children, fathers favour their daughters over their sons, reading to them for longer, and more often.

 

Booktrust is calling on dads up and down the country to match mums’ efforts in reading with their children. To launch the campaign Booktrust’s patron, HRH, The Duchess of Cornwall and bestselling author James Patterson – 2010 Children’s Choice Book Award Author of the Year and founding partner of the Booktrust’s Children’s Reading Fund in association with his publisher Random House – will this afternoon visit a thriving dads reading group to see how dads and their children benefit from sharing books. At the moment, research shows that at formal literacy events for children, only 10% of the parents attending are dads.