Fact or fiction? Novels come top for reading skills

Young people who read fiction have significantly stronger reading skills than their peers who do not, according to new findings from UCL. Researchers from the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), analysed data from more than 250,000 teenagers aged 15, across 35 industrialised countries* who had taken part in the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). The findings are published in a working paper today. The research shows that teenagers who read more fiction (novels, narratives and stories) over magazines, comics, non-fiction and newspapers, have reading skills more than six months ahead of their peers who almost never read fiction books. They and also tend to read more on average per week than other groups - but the benefit of reading fiction applies regardless of total time spent reading. Across the 35 countries, of those who read fiction books regularly, defined as several times per week, 45% read for at least an hour per day. This compares to just 3% of those 15-year-olds who said they almost never read fiction books.