Reading research

What the research says
about reading.

We read the studies so the claims on this site stay honest. Here is what each one found, who it studied, and what it cannot tell us.

Early foundations

Reading starts long before a child reads alone.

What young children know about letters, sounds and language predicts how reading goes later, and the home is part of that story.

2008Birth to age 5

Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel

National Early Literacy Panel, National Institute for Literacy

Research synthesis of about 300 studies

It is the foundational U.S. synthesis of which early skills come before conventional reading.

What it found

Six early skills, including alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness and rapid naming, had medium to large predictive relationships with later literacy.
Those six kept their predictive power even when IQ and family socioeconomic status were accounted for.
Home and parent programs produced statistically significant, moderate to large effects on children's oral language skills and general cognitive abilities.

What it does not prove

It synthesises studies of early skills and structured interventions from before 2008. It says nothing about reading apps or about logging books.

2016Kindergarten to Grade 3

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade

Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse

Evidence-based practice guide

It is the U.S. Department of Education's evidence review of how early reading is taught well.

What it found

Recommendation 1: teach students academic language skills, including inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary.
Recommendations 2 and 3: develop awareness of the sounds in speech and how they link to letters; teach students to decode, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words.
Recommendation 4: ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support accuracy, fluency and comprehension.

What it does not prove

This is guidance for classroom instruction. Readnauts supports the habit and the home around reading. It does not teach reading and does not replace instruction.

Elementary years

Most children like reading at nine. Scores are slipping anyway.

Two large assessments, one international and one in the United States, show where fourth graders stand.

2023Fourth grade, about ages 9 to 10, in 57 countries

PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading

IEA and the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College

International assessment with parent, teacher and school questionnaires

It connects reading achievement at age nine with attitudes toward reading and the home environment.

What it found

On average across countries, 42 percent of fourth graders said they "very much like reading" and another 40 percent "somewhat like reading".
The study reports reading achievement alongside home measures built from a parent questionnaire: early literacy activities before school, whether parents like reading, and home resources.

What it does not prove

The links between attitudes, home support and achievement are associations measured at one point in time. They do not show that one causes the other.

2025U.S. fourth and eighth graders

NAEP 2024 Reading, Grades 4 and 8

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education

National assessment

It is the most trusted benchmark of how U.S. students read.

What it found

The 2024 fourth-grade average reading score was 2 points lower than in 2022 and 5 points lower than in 2019.
NAEP describes fourth-grade reading as continuing "a decline that began pre-pandemic".
31 percent of fourth graders performed at or above NAEP Proficient.
In eighth grade, the share of students below NAEP Basic rose, and scores for the lowest-performing students were the lowest since the assessment began.

What it does not prove

NAEP Proficient is a demanding standard, not ordinary grade level. The results describe the country, not any one child, and they do not explain why scores moved.

Reading habits and family culture

The habit fades around age nine, and it matters that it does.

A long-running family survey and a large meta-analysis, read together, show when reading for fun slips and why the amount children read is tied to how well they read.

2023U.S. children ages 6 to 17 and their parents

Kids & Family Reading Report, 8th Edition

Scholastic

National survey (publisher research)

It tracks how often children read for fun, how much they enjoy it, and who encourages them.

What it found

"Reading books for fun, as well as positive sentiment towards reading, decrease as kids grow up, with marked declines by age 9 that do not rebound."
The share of children who are frequent readers has declined since 2010.
63 percent of children get most of their books from public, school and classroom libraries.
70 percent of children name a teacher or school librarian as someone who encourages them to read for fun.

What it does not prove

It is a survey commissioned by a children's publisher, not peer-reviewed research. It describes what families report, not what causes it.

2011Preschool through university

To Read or Not to Read: A Meta-Analysis of Print Exposure from Infancy to Early Adulthood

Suzanne E. Mol and Adriana G. Bus, Psychological Bulletin

Meta-analysis of 99 studies (7,669 participants)

It is the broadest look at how the amount people read relates to how well they read, across the whole of growing up.

What it found

Across reading comprehension, technical reading and spelling, print exposure showed moderate to strong correlations with skill.
Print exposure explained 12 percent of differences in oral language in preschool, rising to 19 percent in middle school, 30 percent in high school and 34 percent at university.
The authors describe the pattern as an upward spiral: better readers read more, and reading more goes with further growth.

What it does not prove

Most of the underlying studies are correlational. The "upward spiral" is the authors' reading of the pattern, not an experiment, so it cannot be shortened to "reading more causes higher skill".

Reading, writing and knowledge

Reading feeds writing.

Reading is not only its own skill. Experiments show it carries over.

2018Preschool to Grade 12

Reading for Writing: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading Interventions on Writing

Steve Graham and colleagues, Review of Educational Research

Meta-analysis of experiments (54 on teaching reading, 36 on increasing reading)

It tests, with experiments, whether reading improves writing.

What it found

Teaching reading improved writing overall (effect size 0.57), including writing quality (0.63) and spelling (0.56), and the effect was maintained over time (0.37).
Simply having students read more text, or watch others interact with text, also improved writing overall (0.35), writing quality (0.44) and spelling (0.28).

What it does not prove

These were structured reading interventions, mostly in schools. The study does not measure reading for fun at home, and it does not involve any app.

Formats and rereading

Listening and rereading are doing real work.

Two small experiments on questions parents ask: does an audiobook count, and is reading the same book again a waste of time?

2016Adults

Does Modality Matter? The Effects of Reading, Listening, and Dual Modality on Comprehension

Beth A. Rogowsky, Barbara M. Calhoun and Paula Tallal, SAGE Open

Randomized experiment with 91 participants

It directly compares understanding the same text by audiobook, by e-text, and by both at once.

What it found

Participants were randomly assigned to hear a digital audiobook, read an e-text, or do both, using the same preface and chapter from a non-fiction book.
No statistically significant differences in comprehension were found between the three groups, either immediately or two weeks later.

What it does not prove

The participants were adults and the material was one non-fiction text. It says nothing about children, and nothing about learning to decode print, which listening does not practise.

20113-year-olds

Get the Story Straight: Contextual Repetition Promotes Word Learning from Storybooks

Jessica S. Horst, Kelly L. Parsons and Natasha M. Bryan, Frontiers in Psychology

Experiment with specially written storybooks, read three times in a week

It tests whether hearing the same story again helps more than hearing a new one.

What it found

Children heard new words the same number of times, either in the same story read three times or spread across three different stories.
Children who heard the same stories repeatedly were very accurate at recalling and retaining the new words.
Children who heard different stories did not learn the new words.

What it does not prove

A small experiment with made-up words and three-year-olds being read to. It does not show that older children rereading novels learn more, and it is about vocabulary, not overall reading ability.

Motivation and rewards

Rewards can help a habit start. They can also crowd out the reason to read.

Readnauts uses points and a family podium, so these two studies matter to us. We publish them because they are the strongest evidence against leaning on rewards, not because they flatter the product.

1999Children and college students

A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation

Edward L. Deci, Richard Koestner and Richard M. Ryan, Psychological Bulletin

Meta-analysis of 128 experiments

It is the most cited summary of what happens to interest in a task when people are rewarded for doing it.

What it found

Rewards given for engaging in, completing, or performing well at a task significantly undermined free-choice intrinsic motivation (d = -0.40, -0.36 and -0.28).
The same was true of all tangible rewards and all expected rewards.
Positive feedback enhanced both free-choice behavior (d = 0.33) and self-reported interest (d = 0.31).
Tangible rewards tended to be more detrimental for children than for college students.

What it does not prove

These were short laboratory experiments, mostly with tangible rewards such as money or prizes, not reading apps and not points that buy nothing. The study does not show that points harm reading, and it does not show that they are safe. It is a reason for caution, which is how we treat it.

2010Grade 3 to Grade 6

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation as Predictors of Reading Literacy: A Longitudinal Study

Michael Becker, Nele McElvany and Marthe Kortenbruck, Journal of Educational Psychology

Longitudinal study of 740 students

It follows the same children for three years and separates reading for its own sake from reading for outside reasons.

What it found

Reading literacy in Grade 3 negatively predicted extrinsic reading motivation in Grade 4, which in turn negatively predicted reading literacy in Grade 6. The relationship ran in both directions.
Intrinsic reading motivation was linked to later reading literacy through the amount children read, but not once earlier reading literacy was included in the model.

What it does not prove

It is an observational study of one group of students. Extrinsic motivation here means reading for grades, recognition or pressure, measured by questionnaire. It does not test any reward system, and it cannot say that removing rewards would improve reading.

Adolescence

By fifteen, reading is slipping, and so is support at home.

The largest international study of teenagers shows what happens when the habit is not protected.

202615-year-olds in 91 countries and economies

PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Future-Ready Students

OECD

International assessment of more than 760,000 students

It shows reading performance, attention and family support at the age when reading for fun is most at risk.

What it found

Average reading scores across OECD countries fell 28 points between 2015 and 2025. The OECD notes the weakening "predates the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries".
The share of "hasty readers", students who answer fast and wrong, almost doubled, from 6.6 percent in 2018 to 11.4 percent in 2025.
Students reported less family support than in 2022 in almost all countries and economies.
Students reported using digital devices for about 6 hours a day on weekdays, for school and leisure together; leisure use was around 3.4 hours a day (Chapter 4).
The report recalls earlier PISA findings (2018) that students whose parents were seen reading at home reported enjoying reading more, and that reading enjoyment had declined among parents as well as teenagers.

What it does not prove

PISA studies 15-year-olds, not young children. Its links between habits, family support and performance are associations. The OECD also flags sampling caveats for the United States.

Across a lifetime

Reading time is scarce long after school ends.

Not a literacy study: a snapshot of how much time people of different ages spend reading for their own interest.

2026U.S. population age 15 and over

Americans age 15 and over read for an average of 16 minutes per day in 2025

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey

National time-use survey, annual averages

It shows how little room reading gets in a day, and which ages have the least.

What it found

Across everyone aged 15 and over, reading for personal interest averaged 0.27 hours a day in 2025, about 16 minutes.
Ages 15 to 24 averaged 0.16 hours a day, about 10 minutes, and ages 25 to 34 averaged 0.17 hours.
People aged 65 and over averaged 0.53 hours a day, about 32 minutes.

What it does not prove

These are averages across everyone, including people who did not read at all that day. It compares age groups in one year, so it cannot show how one person's reading changes over their life.

How we use this

Research shapes the design. It is not a promise.

Readnauts is designed around behaviors the research consistently associates with stronger reading engagement: reading regularly, reading for enjoyment, family involvement, grown-ups who read too, and encouragement that lasts. Those are design principles. They are not results we can claim.

Where the evidence cuts against a choice we made, such as using points, we say so and link the studies. See Motivation and rewards.

This page holds 13 sources today and will grow. When we add a study, we add its limits too.

What the research saysabout reading.

Reading starts long before a child reads alone.

What it found

What it does not prove

What it found

What it does not prove

Most children like reading at nine. Scores are slipping anyway.

What it found

What it does not prove

What it found

What it does not prove

The habit fades around age nine, and it matters that it does.

What it found

What it does not prove

What it found

What it does not prove

Reading feeds writing.

What it found

What it does not prove

Listening and rereading are doing real work.

What it found

What it does not prove

What it found

What it does not prove

Rewards can help a habit start. They can also crowd out the reason to read.

What it found

What it does not prove

What it found

What it does not prove

By fifteen, reading is slipping, and so is support at home.

What it found

What it does not prove

Reading time is scarce long after school ends.

What it found

What it does not prove

Research shapes the design. It is not a promise.

Keep reading a normal part of home.

What the research says
about reading.