Young people's writing: attitudes, behaviour and the role of technology

• National Literacy Trust

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04 March 2010Writing is an important issue in the UK today. While children’s and young people’s writing standards steadily improved until 2006, levels have not increased in recent years. Writing is much more than just an educational issue – it is an essential skill that allows people to participate fully in today’s society and to contribute to the economy.

Relatively little is known about young people’s views about writing in the UK. As this is the first significant UK study on the subject, the key objectives of this survey were: to explore how much young people enjoy writing, what type of writing they engage in, how good at writing they think they are, what they think about writing and what the role of technology is in young people's writing.

This report outlines the findings from 3001 pupils aged 8-16 from England and Scotland, who completed an online survey in May 2009. It explores gender and age differences, and examines the link between socio-economic background (in terms of free school meals) and writing. Furthermore, it explores young people's writing with respect to mobile phone ownership, having a blog and having a profile on a social networking site. It concludes with practical and policy implications.