\n<\/p>\n
Schools in England are moving away from pupils dressing up as their favourite literary characters for World Book Day, with experts telling MPs they feared the costs of costumes undermined efforts to increase reading for pleasure.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Douglas, chief executive of the National Literacy Trust, said schools were aware of the strains that preparing costumes could place on disadvantaged families, telling MPs on the Commons\u2019 education select committee: \u201cMany schools are incredibly sensitive to that, and are taking away the narrative around dressing-up on World Book Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is on Thursday, with many primary schools encouraging children to take part. But Douglas warned that activities such as dressing-up should not detract from the promotion of reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point of this is that reading for pleasure is a driver of social mobility. Children\u2019s reading for pleasure by the age of 15 is more strongly determinative of their ultimate attainment than their socio-economic background. Therefore anything that takes away from it, as not simply a driver of social mobility but actually an anti-poverty strategy, is undermining the power of reading for pleasure,\u201d Douglas said.<\/p>\n
Helen Hayes, the committee\u2019s chair, said World Book Day was \u201ca wonderful national moment\u201d but the dressing up element favoured \u201cfamilies who have greater resources than others, in their ability to source a costume\u201d.<\/p>\n
Annie Crombie, co-chief executive of BookTrust, the children\u2019s reading charity, told Hayes: \u201cWe see that a lot [of schools] are introducing costume swaps or making items to dress up with in art lessons, so there are ways around it. But it is incredibly important because otherwise it risks exacerbating the factors we know, around stresses on home life, getting in the way of reading being embedded in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The World Book Day charity said: \u201cWe want to make sure that all children, regardless of household income, can take part in World Book Day and be encouraged to read for pleasure. We suggest lots of ways to make sure World Book Day celebrations are inclusive, no-cost and fun for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MPs\u2019 session on the reading for pleasure crisis came after the National Literacy Trust found that the proportion of young people who enjoy reading was at its lowest level for 20 years.<\/p>\n
Onyinye Iwu, a teacher and children\u2019s author, told the MPs that she saw many students struggle to read for pleasure in the early years of secondary school.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of communities don\u2019t encourage children to read for pleasure, they focus on textbooks \u2013 you have to study for your exams, you don\u2019t have to read for pleasure because that\u2019s not going to get you a job. And coming from a migrant background, that\u2019s the thing you consistently hear. It\u2019s something that needs to change intrinsically, in families and in schools,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Iwu asked her students why they didn\u2019t often read for pleasure: \u201cA lot of them were like: \u2018But Miss, we\u2019ve got TikTok, what\u2019s the point?\u2019 And that is it, you\u2019ve got TikTok, you\u2019ve got Netflix, you\u2019ve got the film coming out, so why would you read the book?\u201d<\/p>\n
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