14th September 2026
There is a growing concern that children and adults are reading fewer books than previous generations. It is an issue worth taking seriously, particularly as Scotland is now reviewing its Curriculum for Excellence and looking at what children need to know and be able to do in the years ahead.
But there is a danger in saying simply that people are “reading less”.
A great deal of reading has moved from paper to screens. Websites, emails, online newspapers, messages, social media and digital documents all require reading. A person who spends an hour on a laptop may read considerably more words than somebody who spends an hour reading a book.
The more important question may therefore be what people are reading and how deeply they are reading it.
Research by the National Literacy Trust shows that reading in Scotland has certainly changed. In its 2025 survey of 8 to 18-year-olds, only 16.8% said they read daily in their free time, while 32.5% said they rarely or never did so. Only 30.3% said they enjoyed reading in their free time.
Yet the same research shows that young people are reading in many different ways. Fiction remains popular in print, while digital reading includes websites, social media and direct messages. The National Literacy Trust says digital reading is now firmly embedded in young people's everyday lives.
That distinction matters.
Reading a short message or scrolling through social media is not the same mental exercise as reading a 300-page novel. A book requires the reader to concentrate for a much longer period, remember what has happened earlier and follow an argument or story that may develop over hundreds of pages.
This is sometimes described as deep reading.
It does not mean that reading a website is somehow inferior. A detailed online article, government report or scientific paper can require just as much concentration as a printed document. The important issue is whether people are still developing the ability to concentrate on substantial amounts of information and understand what they are reading.
That is particularly relevant to schools.
Scotland is currently undertaking what the Scottish Government describes as the biggest update to the curriculum in more than a decade. Education Scotland's Curriculum Improvement Cycle is intended to make it clearer what children should know, understand and be able to do at different stages.
The review also recognises that the curriculum has accumulated many expectations over the years. Education Scotland says the previous system developed in a somewhat reactive way, with new suggestions and requirements added over time, creating a risk of curriculum overload.
That makes the question of reading particularly important.
Schools cannot simply turn the clock back and ask children to spend their days reading printed books. Modern children need digital skills, including understanding technology and increasingly artificial intelligence. The curriculum is also expected to prepare them for a very different world of work from that faced by previous generations.
But digital skills should not come at the expense of the ability to read carefully and think about what has been read.
Perhaps the objective should therefore be neither books versus computers nor old-fashioned education versus modern education.
It should be about making sure that children can do both.
They need to be comfortable reading from a screen, searching for information and judging whether it is reliable. They also need to be able to sit down with a substantial piece of writing and follow it without constantly being distracted by something else.
That may become even more important as artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday life. AI can summarise information very quickly, but people still need enough reading ability to judge whether the summary is accurate, whether important information has been omitted and whether the original source is trustworthy.
Scotland's curriculum review therefore has an opportunity to look beyond the number of books children read.
The real test should be whether young people leave school able to read, understand, question and use information, whatever form it takes.
Books still have an important place in that process. So do newspapers, websites, reports and digital material.
The medium has changed enormously since the days when most information arrived on paper.
The need to understand what we read has not.