Research has shown that book ownership has a significant impact on life outcomes. In 2019, we found that that children who reported that they had a book of their own were not only more engaged with reading but also six times more likely to read above the level expected for their age than children who did not own a book (22% vs. 3.6%). We included…

The National Literacy Trust's research during the first national lockdown in spring 2020 showed that more children and young people said that they enjoyed reading and more read more often during lockdown compared with before the pandemic. Children and young people's comments suggested that this was because they suddenly had time to (re)engage with…

The National Literacy Trust's 2018 report on letter writing highlighted the enduring appeal of writing letters to connect people. Many children and young people also said that they write letters to make the person they are writing to happy. This has never been truer now. This report of responses to a survey from early 2021 shows that children and…

Listening to children's experiences of writing during the first lockdown in spring 2020, it became clear that for many it had been a time of increased creativity, with children writing everything from songs and stories to scripts, and some even beginning their own novels. Another prominent theme in the research last summer was that having more…

This report outlines findings from questions included in the National Literacy Trust's Annual Literacy Survey in early 2021 to explore children and young people's literacy-related interactions in relation to video game playing. The survey reached 42,502 children and young people aged 8 to 18 between January and mid-March 2021, during the third…

Since March 2020, the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has explored the various benefits of audiobooks for children and young people, from building comprehension skills to sharing stories across generations. Time and again, two key themes have arisen: the power of audio to engage reluctant readers, and the role of audiobooks in promoting and…

Literacy topics fluctuate each year in how much attention they receive in research and practice. The "What's Hot in Literacy" annual survey asks twenty-five leading experts what literacy topics are currently receiving attention, or are hot, as well as which topics should be hot in the field. The results of these interviews are tallied to…

Framed by theories of youth, culture, identity studies, and literacy identity formation, this article examines how youth articulate themselves as writers. Using interview transcripts, analysis explored writing identity from the perspective of teens in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Findings from this qualitative study suggest that youth used…

Resistance takes on many forms in modern society as people effectively engage in resistance literacies, the sending and receiving of meaning in culturally embedded contexts framed by unequal power. This article foregrounds two Mexican-identifying women who live in the U.S. through their testimonios of resistance to xenophobic and racist rhetoric…

Given constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce…

This paper explores the possible negative implications of teacher selected whole-class reads rooted within the traditional canon of English Language Arts instruction and possible solutions for re-engaging the disengaged adolescent reader through choice reading and the implementation of more culturally relevant texts. Historically, English Language…

Dialogic talk affords students opportunities to share ideas and co-construct knowledge while developing various literacy skills such as perspective taking, text comprehension, and argumentative reasoning. In this study, we examine how seventh- and eighth-grade students in four classrooms discuss a controversial topic about changing a National…

This paper describes a year-long ethnographic, phenomenologically hermeneutically oriented project of research and practical education that focused on a) the media experiences of adolescents aged 15-17, and b) nurturing adolescents' ability to reflect upon their lived media experiences. Autoethnography is used to illustrate a day in the life of a…

School-home communication is a growing research field in social sciences, particularly in education sciences and communication studies. While previous studies have paid much attention to the importance of school-home interaction in supporting primary academic socialisation and progress of elementary school pupils, the role of teacher-parent…

Social media platforms rely on algorithms to filter and select content, thereby personalizing every individual's social media experience. Many use social media without awareness of this personalization and its impact, pointing to a need to both understand and improve literacy among active social media users. This qualitative study addresses…