The who, what and how of teen reading

7 things you need to know

“My teen has stopped reading.”

“How can I get my 13 year old to read more?”

“My 14-year-old son has lost interest in books.”

These questions, and hundreds more like them, turn up in some form or another several times a week in the Your Kid’s Next Read community.

There is no doubt that adults are seeing a disconnect between the teenagers in their lives and books and stories.

Anecdotally, the reasons for this are many and varied (though parents tend to focus on the siren call of screens and digital devices), but one study set out to find out exactly what is going on with teens and reading.

Discovering a good read

In episode 132 of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast, we interviewed Deakin University research fellow Dr Bronwyn Reddan from the Teen Reading Project about teens and reading in the digital age

"The ‘call to action’ for the project in the first place was to really understand how reading has changed in our digital world – are there things going on that we need to know about and address?” says Dr Reddan.

“There was a pilot project before I joined the team in 2016 and one of the big findings from that was that when we asked teens what was stopping them from reading, they answered ‘the difficulty of discovering a good book’.’

And so ‘Discovering A Good Read: Teen Reading in the Digital Era’ was born.

“It’s about finding out how teenagers discover a good read – and how we can help them do that more effectively,” says Dr Reddan.

It’s also designed to show all the things that have an impact on teen reading – and the things that do not.

For instance, the research found that the location of students (metropolitan or regional, different states) doesn’t have much influence on their reading habits, and neither does the type of school they attend (independent, catholic or government).

“Things that are important are gender – girls engage more with reading than boys – and age,” says Dr Reddan. “Younger teenagers tend to be more consistent readers than older teens, but when we get to the middle teen years (14/15), we start to see divergence. By the time we get to older teen categories, we have polarised reading habits – intensive in a short burst, or move away from reading all together.”

To save you time, we’ve summarised seven key points from the podcast interview with Dr Reddan below – and go to the very end for all the details of our FREE, live special event where Dr Reddan and senior school library specialist Trisha Buckley will be on hand to answer all your questions!