4 million children don't own any books.

[MincePieFlavouredVoidka]

Here

What a sad story - as someone who is always surrounded by books I find it hard to imagine them not being around.

Also what about bookstart? Both of my younger DC's have been given books by them, is it not countrywide?

The survey was for 8 year olds and above - I can well believe it, although it is a sad statistic. And with the cuts to programmes like Bookstart and cuts to libraries it will only get worse.

For the last three years all of our Y7 kids have had a free book, and some don't want to take it at all, because they don't think it is important. It's free, FFS!

Mmm "The researchers also found that children who are eligible for free school meals - a measure of poverty - are less likely to own a book than their more wealthy peers".
Sorry but it does annoy me a bit that they try to make this about poverty. I had plenty of books when I was a child but apart from the odd Christmas or birthday present they all came from jumble sales. There are even more opportunities nowadays (with so many charity shops, ebay etc) to pick up books for pennies. It's more about the choices parents make. That libraries are being closed is criminal IMO but this article is about children owning a book. Such a shame that they don't get a chance to know what it is to really cherish a book. They are missing out on so many levels , not just academically.

Please don't take that article seriously - the study only took in 18,000 households. Why they thought it was a good idea to extrapolate that the same percentage of children nationwide don't have books from such a tiny study, I don't know

It's scaremongering, another way for the media to make parents feel guilty. Some of the stuff in that article is accurate, like the decline in interest as far as books are concerned, but 4 million children not owning even ONE book is a ridiculous assumption for the NLS to make.

Sounds like you don't understand statistics, xStarGirl. The sample size is plenty big enough and 18,000 children does not make a tiny study!

The margin of error for this study is 0.73% so you repeat this study again & again 10,000 times and you'd get a significantly different answer only 73 times!

It is concerning that there are children who don't own books. A friend who is a primary school teacher says she has children entering school who don't even know the right way to hold a book up.

Children have zero income, zero purchasing power and own very little of anything. Parents are the ones doing the buying. When children's books can be picked up for a few pence at a jumble-sale or charity shop, income is irrelevant, and the conclusion has to be that some parents don't see books, and by extension education, as important. I bet if the study was broken down into ethnic groups there wouldn't be many children of Asian origin that didn't own a book.

Don't they get a free one on world book day? Maybe they just borrow them from the library.

Cherry they get a £1 book token on WBD

Oh here it is. Thought there must be a thread. Wondered if national literacy trust was making it all up for attention - still think their Christmas campaign is good though.

campaign

(I was shocked to learn from friend who works in primary school that many many many children start reception not knowing how to turn a page.)

Tenderly, that doesn't surprise me at all.

A couple of years ago, my OH did some volunteer work to try and get some work experience and through that she was put into a nursery for a few weeks.

I had to ask her to stop telling me stories because it was making me so angry I'd be seriously tempted to find these parents and do them some harm.

I don't know what the answer is but the issue here is rarely poverty per se but feckless parents making stupid choices.

As Cogito says, it's a matter of priorities. You can get books at jumble sales, charity shops, Freecycle, car boot sales. To link this to poverty I think is disingenuous. The bottom line is the parents don't give a shit.

thats shocking! I love books and my dd has loads (charity shops are great!) and we visit the library often. I think linking it to poverty is ridiculous though I am poor but have plenty of books for dd!

xStarGirl, It's scaremongering, another way for the media to make parents feel guilty.

I don't understand that. They reported this to make parents feel guilty? It's a massively concerning statistic. Did they not report it to make us aware of how widespread the problems of low literacy/poverty/neglect are?

But often, feckless parents that don't give a shit are on benefits so there is a link to poverty. I don't know how the numbers stack up, but to say that there is no link between parental income and number of books owned by a child is also disingenuous.

As for it being another way to make parents feel guilty, Jesus, any parent of a child that has no books should feel very guilty indeed.

It's correlation, not cause. Children with no books are more likely to be children also living in poverty. It doesn't mean there's a causal link. Which is why you can be someone who grew up poor but with plenty of books.

(I agree Callisto!)

Well they might be using the library I suppose, but really I suspect some of these kids aren't being parented, just sort of fed and watered, which is such a huge shame.

Any one in poverty will get child benefit so they have money every month they could spend on books, they would be choosing to spend it on something else.

The horrible thing is that kids books are usually 4 for a quid (or so) in charity shops - good books too. When we were skint we built up a library that way for ds. But money isn't the issue, there are other factors.

In our local charity shop you can get 10 children's books for £2. There is no excuse at all for not having books around.

It seems like a relatively easy thing to fix, no?

It must be mainly down to how you were brought up and education/schooling not being able to break the cycle of bad parenting being passed down from generation to generation. I do find it deeply sad that schools are not capable of instilling a love, or at least, a respect of books in the vast majority of their pupils, no matter what their upbringing.

That's very true. I heard a statistic once, that 20% of the adult population is functionally illiterate. That was 20 years ago, and I don't know if that's functionally illiterate in English. Anyway, it's a bit of a shocker.

I read this article yesterday and it shocked me that so many children do not have books (not plural not singular). It is my opinion that it highlights the root of the majority of problems in British society which is parents who are not invested in raising their child(ren). There are many reasons why parents can end up not investing more resources in their children. The main reasons I see are:

1. Lack of time from working long hours.
2. Lack of education for parents resulting in parents not knowing what activities to do with their children.
3. Stress from raising a child on your own.
4. Laziness.

For the 18,000 households tested where no book at home was found, I think the parents should be pulled into their childrens school so researchers can find out the real reason why these children do not have a single book. As far as I am concerned it is neglectful to not provide stimulation to your children. Basic stimulation includes having books at home for your child to read.

While it would be interesting to see the ethnic and income distributions for the sample size I think we all know that the group without book are most likely to have lazy parents or parents who lack education. I would like to see if there is a correlation between age of parents and thier educational attainment. Being poor in the UK is not an excuse for not having books. As many have said, you can buy them 2nd hand for pennies.

Don't think it is particularly helpful to demonise the parents as feckless, lazy or similarly insulting terms. The causes might be complex but the actual provision of books for children and the promotion of adult literacy is relatively straightforward isn't it?