Prague, Jan 17 (CTK) – The number of keen readers among Czech children increased in the past five years, with two thirds of younger and a half of older schoolchildren spending their leisure time reading, according to a survey the Czech National Library and the Nielsen Admosphere agency released on Wednesday.
Teenagers read about eight books a year on average, but 14 percent of them admit that they do not read books at all because they do not like reading or have no time to read.
The main source of information for them is the Internet,
A total of 2,009 respondents, including children and adolescents aged from six to 19, and also parents, took part in the survey last summer.
Compared with a previous similar survey from 2013, the number of regular readers among the first- to the fifth-grade pupils (aged 7-12) increased by 6 percent, and among the sixth- to the ninth-graders (aged 13-16) by 8 percent.
“A certain decline was registered between the years 2008 and 2013. It has stopped now, and the trend is moderately optimistic,” Hana Friedlaenderova, from Nielsen Admosphere, said.
She said it is the family, including parents reading to small children, that influences the development of children’s reading as a hobby most of all.
The offspring of parents with university education read more than other children.
There are 6 percent of children whom parents never read in their life, the survey showed.
Children often see a film version of a book story, which motivates them to read the book, Friedlaenderova said, mentioning the Harry Potter series as an example.
The number of children who prefer paper books to e-books has been rising. A total of 27 percent of children have experience with e-books and 6 percent read them regularly.
Twenty-three percent of children listen to audio books now and then, but only few do so regularly.
One third of teenagers go to a school library, while a half go to a public library. With their growing age, however, children visit libraries less and less frequently, mainly due to a time shortage and lack of interest in reading, the poll showed.
One third of those polled said all necessary information can be found online. Almost all adolescents follow the social networks, most of them daily.
The share of children on social networks increases steeply with their rising age. While over two thirds of the nine-year-olds do not use them, there is one third of non-users among the 11-year-olds and only 18 percent among the 13-year-olds.
