Why Bedtime Stories Matter More Than Ever

By Chris Livemore

I want to talk about some numbers and highlight a worrying trend.

Numbers that, when you sit with them for a moment, explain exactly why I wanted to write picture books about a small knight, and why I think bedtime stories matter more right now than they ever have.

The picture is not especially encouraging. But the good news is that the solution may already be sitting in your living room, or bookshelf - its all about choices.

Children are falling out of love with reading

According to the National Literacy Trust, (NLT) just 1 in 3 children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025. That is the lowest level recorded since the NLT began tracking reading enjoyment twenty years ago.

Even more striking: reading enjoyment among children has fallen by 36% since 2005.

Read that again for a moment.

In two decades, we have gone from most children enjoying reading to only a third. And the decline is accelerating. The NLT also reported the steepest year-on-year drop ever recorded between 2024 and 2025.

Not a gradual slide. A cliff edge.

Boys are falling furthest behind

This is the part that lands hardest if you have a son. Data from the UK Department for Education consistently shows girls outperforming boys in English reading and writing by the end of primary school. The gap appears early and often widens over time.

Researchers have also long noted that disengagement from reading often overlaps with wider disengagement from education more broadly. Boys are significantly more likely to face school suspensions and exclusions, and literacy challenges are frequently part of a much larger picture around confidence, attainment and engagement.

Reading matters because it affects everything else. Vocabulary. Comprehension. Confidence. Communication. Imagination. A child who reads comfortably moves through the world differently.

Parents are reading less too

There is another part of this story that matters just as much.

The same National Literacy Trust research found that daily reading at home has declined significantly in recent years. Families are under pressure. Parents are stretched. Work is demanding. Screens are everywhere. Evenings disappear quickly. And it is easy to put off reading until tomorrow or the day after that.

None of this is about blaming parents. Modern family life is genuinely exhausting, not everyone has access to a 'village' that help like we did a generation before. But the consequence is that fewer children are experiencing one of the most powerful predictors of long-term literacy development: being regularly read to by an adult they love.

And fathers still read less frequently with children than mothers overall.

That matters too, let's take a look at why.

What the research says about dads

Research from the University of Leeds found that fathers who actively engage in childcare hugely improve their children's educational outcomes, regardless of income or background. Other studies have repeatedly found that children benefit enormously from seeing male role models read.

It doesn't need to be perfect. Just regularly.

A dad reading a story at bedtime may not feel revolutionary. But to a child, it quietly communicates something important: Reading matters. Stories matter. Men read too. And perhaps most importantly: You matter enough for me to stop everything else for ten minutes and sit here with you.

This connection delivers a powerful cognitive and emotional boost for children. Research highlights that this consistent interaction directly accelerates early learning, fosters stronger academic skills, and builds a unique, lasting bond that supports their confidence and future success. The impact is also more keenly felt by daughters as well.

Research from Harvard (2015) suggests dads have a unique interactive style. While mothers may focus on the literal elements of a book (e.g., naming colours and objects), fathers are more likely to connect the story to real-life experiences, or go off-piste with their imaginations.

Ten minutes, six hundred seconds makes a BIG difference.

The part nobody talks about nnough

Reading at bedtime is not just good for children. It is good for dads. The ten minutes before lights out is one of the few genuinely calm, genuinely close moments available in modern family life. No rushing. No notifications. No multitasking. Just a child, a story, and somebody they trust completely.

Those moments build up.

Children may not remember every book you read to them. But they remember the feeling of it. The safety of it. The ritual of it. And long after they can read independently, they often still remember who showed up consistently with a story.

Why I wrote The Good Knight

This is the whole reason Jack exists. I did not set out to write a literacy campaign disguised as a small knight with a shield. I just wanted to create stories children genuinely enjoyed and fathers genuinely wanted to read aloud.

Stories with adventure, humour, heart, dragons, ridiculous tournaments, improbable bravery, and the occasional medieval insult. And the chance to ROOOAR loudly. Books on subjects that dads enjoy. Characters designed to appeal to a dads sense of humour and link to stories that they would have read growing up - Jack and the Beanstalk, To All A Good Night.

But underneath all of that was something much simpler:

A belief that stories still matter enormously.

Especially now.

Especially for dads.

Especially at bedtime.

What this all means

The research tells a remarkably consistent story.

Children are reading less and enjoying it less. Boys are falling furthest behind. Reading at home has declined. And children benefit enormously when fathers engage consistently with stories and books.

None of this is inevitable. And the solution, in many ways, is beautifully uncomplicated:

A book. A child. Ten minutes. A parent who makes this a special part of the daily routine.

That is the whole mission. All I did was write a knight small enough for a child to believe in and enjoy the silly stories. And then stories that I hope would make a tired parent read one more page and then another and then give one more ROOOAR before bed.

Join Jack’s Shield Wall, the free Good Knight community newsletter, at https://www.thegoodknightbook.com/shield-wall for updates on the books, medieval history, new adventures, and the ongoing quest to get more children excited about stories again.

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Because bedtime should be many things. And occasionally ridiculous is one of them. 🏰