Supporting Reading for Pleasure in the Teenage Years: Increasing Enjoyment and Engagement with Books

There is evidence of continued low levels of reading enjoyment and engagement among teenagers (Clark et al., 2025), therefore research-informed ways to re-engage young people with books is essential, if they are to enjoy and experience the wide range of benefits associated with book reading (for example, empathy and wellbeing.)

The Young People’s Reading Project focused specifically on teenage readers, and this blogpost synthesises research insights into both the motivators (Webber et al., 2025) and barriers (Webber et al., 2023) to reading books during adolescence, from adolescents’ own perspectives. Some key findings are summarised below, followed by access to a guide for high school teachers and librarians which provides a broader range of insights, as well as practical strategies to support reading in secondary schools.

Access

“Well, this is going to sound really bad but, like, our school library, it doesn’t get updated a lot … if you update that and gave us more access to different kinds of books that would help out.”

Access to books aligned with young people’s interests, priorities and purposes for reading, in addition to their life experiences, reading and attention levels, is essential to support reading for pleasure. In our research, some young people reported a mismatch between the books they were interested in and those they had available to them in school. Finding ways to involve young people in future school book provision is essential to ensure the books available reflect the interests, preferences, lives and abilities of your school community. 

Autonomy and Choice

“We’d read more books if they were about stuff we actually enjoy rather than just books about war and stuff we don’t like.”

The teenage years are a period of life associated with increase desired for agency and autonomy – and this is also reflected within book choice. However, many young people lack the skills and experience in choosing books aligned with their personal interests. Providing explicit guidance and support for this is essential, in addition to giving young people opportunities to read for enjoyment during school time.

Relatable Messaging

“…it’s the same thing over and over again if they do advertise it like, you know, it is a way to escape or something like that, which is true, but it’s on every single poster.”

Young people spoke of the importance of promoting reading in ways which resonated with them, which were authentic and relatable, and which communicated with them ‘on their own terms’. Authentic messaging from influencers and role models was seen as one way to do this, but also promoting book reading in ways which aligned with individual interests, preferences and purposes, rather than adult dominated messaging.

Reading Experiences in School

“Because we’re forced to read a lot of, like, old books like old poetry, like Shakespeare and everything, that we’re not really interested in. So, like, when you’re forced to read stuff like that it makes us think negatively of reading as a whole.”

Some young people spoke of how some school-based practices, delivered as part of the curriculum, had a detrimental effect on their perceptions of books and reading. Balancing curriculum requirements alongside cultivating a love of reading is essential to ensure more young people can experience the rich and diverse benefits associated with reading books. 

Meeting Young People Where They Are

“I think it’s kind of laborious and then I kind of get bored of doing it.”

Negative experiences of book reading can be challenging, and this research, and previous research led by our group (Wilkinson et al., 2020) recognises that books are often seen as too long, too difficult, or too time consuming to fit into young people’s lives. Building positive reading experiences, for example, by including selections of shorter texts within your school library may be one way to support with this.

To find out more about this project, access the academic articles, other blogposts and find our short guide for high school teachers and librarians based on this project, please visit the Young People’s Reading Project within the Literacy Lab.

With thanks to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Scottish Book Trust for funding this research.

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Sarah McGeown is Professor of Literacy at the University of Edinburgh. She works with children, young people, teachers, and literacy, library and education organisations to conduct her research, which seeks to better understand how to increase children and young people’s reading enjoyment and engagement, in addition to examining the benefits associated with book reading. Sarah is Director (Education) of the Literacy Lab at the University of Edinburgh, an interdisciplinary research hub focused on improving literacy engagement and enriching lives through literacy.

Website: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/literacylab/ 

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For Conduit English resources aimed at promoting reading for pleasure, we have our ‘Building a Reading Culture’ series, one booklet which specifically focuses on Reading for Pleasure.

S1 Building A Reading Culture 6: Reading for Pleasure

For a shared reading area, perhaps in a classroom, library or English department corridor, why not use our Reading Recommendation Poster?

Reading Recommendation Poster

Finally, our Summer Reading Bingo challenge encourages reading for pleasure over the summer, or for any other time of year!

Summer Reading Bingo challenge