The report explored the link between reading, writing and mental wellbeing using two new measures to better understand these relationships:
- Mental Wellbeing Index: we quantified children’s responses to questions on life satisfaction, coping skills and self-belief on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest level of mental wellbeing.
- Literacy engagement score: we quantified children’s responses to questions on how much they enjoy reading and writing, how often they read and write outside school, what they think about reading and writing, and how good children think they are at reading and writing. Scores were then given out of a total of 52, where 52 is the highest level of engagement with literacy practices.
Overall, the report shows that there is a link between mental wellbeing and reading and writing enjoyment and attitudes. Attitudes towards reading and writing emerge consistently as the strongest predictors of mental wellbeing, which might suggest that children and young people who feel positively about life in general are also more likely to feel positive about reading and writing.
The findings might also suggest that a positive learning environment is important for wellbeing: it is possible that children who have positive experiences of reading and writing in the classroom feel better about their ability, which, in turn, creates positive attitudes and motivation towards the activity and through that enforces more positive attitudes in general and therefore higher wellbeing.
The lack of association between frequency of reading and writing and mental wellbeing might also suggest that content, rather than the actual act of reading or writing, is linked to higher mental wellbeing.
The report also includes new analysis from University College London which shows an enduring relationship between mental health and verbal scores, with those who have low verbal ability having worse mental health outcomes than those with higher verbal ability.
Key Findings:
- Children and young people who are the most engaged with literacy have better mental wellbeing than their peers who are the least engaged (Mental Wellbeing Index scores of 7.9/10 vs 6.6/10)
- Children who are the most engaged with literacy are three times more likely to have higher levels of mental wellbeing than children who are the least engaged (39.4% vs 11.8%)
- Conversely, children who are the least engaged with literacy are twice as likely to have low levels of mental wellbeing than their peers who are the most engaged (37.4% vs 15%)
- Children with above expected reading skills are three times more likely to have high levels of mental wellbeing than their peers with below expected reading skills (40.3% vs 13.1%)
- As children transition from primary to secondary school, their levels of literacy engagement and mental wellbeing both begin and continue to decline
- Boys who are the most engaged with literacy have higher levels of mental wellbeing than girls who are equally engaged (Mental Wellbeing Index scores of 8.1/10 vs 7.6/10)
- In line with previous studies, boys have higher mental wellbeing levels than girls, and pupils aged 8 to 11 have higher mental wellbeing scores than those aged 11 to 14 and those aged 14 to 16, with those aged 16 to 18 having the lowest mental wellbeing scores.
- Contrary to previous findings, pupils in this study who receive free school meals score very similarly in terms of their mental wellbeing to their peers from more advantaged backgrounds.
- Pupils from black ethnic backgrounds have higher mental wellbeing than pupils from Asian ethnic backgrounds, who in turn have higher scores than pupils from white and mixed ethnic backgrounds.
- Children and young people from Greater London tended to have the highest mental wellbeing scores, while those from Yorkshire and the Humber scored the lowest.
- There is a steady increase in mean mental wellbeing scores as one progresses from one literacy quartile to the next, from a mean score of 6.6 out of 10 for those who have low literacy engagement (bottom quartile) to 7.9 out of 10 for those with a high level of literacy engagement (top quartile).
- Nearly 2 in 5 (37.4%) of those who have low literacy engagement also report low mental wellbeing, while only 1 in 9 (11.8%) of those who have low literacy engagement have high levels of mental wellbeing. Conversely, 2 in 5 (39.4%) of those who have high levels of literacy engagement also have high scores in their mental wellbeing.
- There is a steady increase in literacy engagement scores as one progresses from one mental wellbeing quartile to the next, increasing from a mean score of 32.8 out of 52 for those who score in the bottom quartile (i.e. who have low mental wellbeing) to 38.2 out of 52 for those who score in the top quartile (i.e. those with a high mental wellbeing).
- Nearly 2 in 3 (64.3%) of those who have high levels of mental wellbeing consider themselves to be above average readers, compared with nearly 1 in 2 (46.1%) of those who have low levels of mental wellbeing.
- Conversely, those who have low levels of mental wellbeing are three times more likely to say that they are below average readers compared with those who have high levels of mental wellbeing (15.0% vs. 4.8% respectively).
- Nearly twice as many children and young people with high levels of mental wellbeing said that they are above average writers compared with those who have low levels of mental wellbeing (53.5% vs. 29.7% respectively).
- Those who have low levels of mental wellbeing are three times more likely to consider themselves to be below average writers compared with their peers with high levels of mental wellbeing (21.3% vs. 7.2% respectively).
- 3 in 4 (76.4%) of those who have high levels of mental wellbeing think positively about reading compared with 1 in 2 (48.3%) of those with low levels of mental wellbeing.
- Children and young people with a reading skill at or above the level expected for their age have higher mental wellbeing than their peers who read below their expected level.
WEB LINK
Mental Wellbeing, Reading And Writing