Most academic writers are regular readers. There is of course a strong connection between reading and writing. Reading and writing feed each other. But I’m not focused on the connection right now. No, I’m thinking about how hard we often find it to prioritise time for reading. And how maybe the reality is that most […] … learn more→

Imagine a child reading the story of a refugee girl who crosses the sea to flee a war. By the end of the book, that child has not only learned new words: they have felt fear, hope, anger, relief… This is one of the powers of literature: its ability to make us experience other people’s […] … learn more→

For four centuries, the Catholic Church banned the reading of hundreds of works deemed subversive—from Galileo Galilei to Simone de Beauvoir. Beginning in 1966, censorship was officially lifted, and popes increasingly valued reading as a spiritual and intellectual act. Francis’s pontificate marked a new era: it refocused the focus on reading as a tool of […] … learn more→

Artificial intelligence (AI) is gradually infiltrating the world of education, particularly in the teaching of reading. More and more digital tools are offering to help budding readers decipher their first texts. While official data shows large gaps in achievement between students and significant difficulties for some students entering sixth grade, what can we expect from […] … learn more→

The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42% in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers, according to research by The Reading Agency. But what are the implications? Will people’s […] … learn more→

We start from a recent event that occurred in the Swedish elementary education system. After decades of investing in a public education policy based on the use of digital and virtual tools – which has made the country a global reference in the sector – the Swedish government is now striving to convince the current […] … learn more→

I often say, following John Wagner, that a paper, chapter or book ought to reduce a reader’s ignorance. In other words, when they’ve finished reading what you’ve written, a reader ought to feel that they know more about the topic than when they started. I like the modesty of reducing ignorance. It has none of the hubris […] … learn more→

Reading is determined biologically, like speech. It is the result of a complex learning process. The first signs of language could have appeared with Homo Erectus around 1.9 million years ago . Instead, the first writings date back to around 4,000 years before Jesus Christ . The brain has had almost two million years to develop the neural network […] … learn more→

Identifying with an activity is different from actually doing it. For example, 49% of Americans play video games, but only 10% identify as gamers. According to a recent survey we conducted, there’s also a small gap between reading activity and identity for younger readers: 61% of Generation Z and millennials have read a print book, e-book […] … learn more→

Reading is essential to integrate into society. We live surrounded by written information with which we learn. But it is also an excellent leisure activity. In Spain, for example, 98.1% of people over 15 years of age  can read. Recognizes spellings, letters and words and is able to follow the thematic thread of a text. But if there is no will […] … learn more→