This November, the LED team (Digital Reading) of ERI-Lectura has published the group’s first Policy Report. The report, “Impact of Digital Reading in Primary Education”, gathers data from studies on reading habits in primary and secondary education and their impact on reading comprehension and motivation.

This November, the LED team (Digital Reading) of ERI-Lectura has published the group’s first Policy Report. The report, “Impact of Digital Reading in Primary Education”, gathers data from studies on reading habits in primary and secondary education and their impact on reading comprehension and motivation. Below, you can find the executive summary of the report. To access the full report, you may do so through this link:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17675775

Various international reports show a decline in reading comprehension, reading in print format, and motivation to read, along with an increase in digital reading habits. These studies, however, collect data from a single point in time and compare different groups of students by grade, which prevents establishing longitudinal comparisons or determining whether the observed differences persist or evolve over time. Furthermore, most of these results were obtained outside Spain. In contrast, this report presents information collected over three years of primary education (from 4th to 6th grade) in the province of Valencia, evaluating the same group of students (around 900) for three consecutive years. This report provides: 1) descriptive information on student trends, and 2) information on the relationships between reading habits (print and digital), reading comprehension, and reading motivation.

1) Descriptive information on student trends:

• Decline in reading comprehension: In 4th grade, most students were at expected levels. However, in 6th grade only half of the students are at expected levels. Additionally, from 4th to 6th grade, the number of students with significant reading comprehension deficits doubles. Finally, an alarming decrease is observed in the proportion of students with high levels of comprehension compared to previous assessments.
• Decline in reading motivation: In 6th grade, only 1 out of 3 students states that they enjoy reading.
• Decline in print reading habits for leisure: Between 4th and 6th grade, the percentage of students who do not read in print for leisure increases (from 40% to 46%), while the percentage of those who read daily decreases (from 16.4% in 4th grade to 11.9% in 6th grade). When the reason for reading is academic, print remains the most frequently used format: almost 7 out of 10 students report reading daily or weekly on paper for academic purposes, and this habit remains stable throughout primary school.
• Increase in digital reading habits for leisure: Between 4th and 6th grade, the percentage of students who read digitally for leisure on a daily basis increases (from 23% in 4th grade to 32% in 6th grade), while the percentage of those who never or almost never read in this format decreases (from 36% in 4th grade to 28% in 6th grade). In the case of academic reading, this habit also increases: in 4th grade, 37.2% of students report never or almost never reading digitally for academic purposes, a percentage that drops to 27.4% in 6th grade.

2) Information on the relationships between reading habits (print and digital), reading comprehension, and reading motivation

• Students who showed high levels of print reading habits for leisure also showed high levels of reading comprehension and motivation.
• Students who showed high levels of digital reading habits for leisure showed low levels of comprehension and motivation. A more complex analysis found that an increase in digital leisure reading habits in one academic year did not lead to any change in comprehension or motivation the following year.
• The level of reading habits for academic purposes, whether in print or digital format, was not related to reading comprehension. However, an increase in digital reading habits for academic purposes in fifth grade led to a decrease in reading motivation the following year.

Among the most notable conclusions, we highlight that print reading habits continue to be a potential predictor of reading comprehension and motivation, whereas digital reading habits (although increasingly common) contribute only in a limited, and even negative, way to their development. The implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations for the educational community are proposed to help address the possible negative effects of the highlighted trends and relationships.