World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and shared reading. Our mission is to promote reading for pleasure. Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. We want to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them. Designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, World Book Day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.
Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. Key outcomes are listed below.
• Improvement in vocabulary in comparison to non-readers (Millenium Cohort Study)
• Correlation between regularity of reading for pleasure and ability in reading each reinforcing the other as students get older (Cremin 2019, Torppa 2020)
• Better performance in subjects other than English (Millenium Cohort Study)
• Reading for pleasure is one of the most important predictors of test scores at age 16, regardless of background (OECD)
• There is a strong correlation between regular reading for Pleasure and Mental Wellbeing which is separate from other predictors (NLT 2018)
• Reading improves a child’s empathy skills (Oatly 2016)
• Interventions developing Reading for Pleasure attitudes (offering book choice and time to read rather than instruction) have a greater influence on reading ability than reading lessons for older children/adults (Greenberg 2014)
The Department for Education’s recent Reading Framework – Teaching the Foundations of Literacy published in July 2021 also includes a summary of the evidence on Reading for Pleasure and highlights how it might be put in practice in the curriculum.
Labreeze offers full range of World Book Costumes, Accessories and other Fancy Dress products. Please visit our book week section