Watch House Cross Community Library has been fighting the decline of child literacy and reading skills with their monthly Children’s Book Club – for ages nine to twelve.
According to librarian Gráinne Keane, the aim of the book club is to make reading fun for children. “[We want to] raise their literacy levels and combat the rise of children’s social media usage.” Keane attributed the difficulty in getting children to develop reading habits to social media, in particular, unsupervised usage of online short form content such as YouTube Shorts and TikTok taking most of their time and attention span. The book club was designed not only to get children to read more, but also to create a social environment surrounding books, where children both discuss the book they are reading and take part in activities related to it.
Watchhouse Cross Library will also host a Summer Children’s Book Club, aimed at keeping children reading during the school holiday period when they are most likely to disengage from reading.
The Children’s Books Ireland Report 2025, based on a national survey of Irish parents and carers, found that almost one in four teenagers aged 13 to 18 read nothing outside of school. Among boys, the picture was starker; nearly one in five across all age groups had no reading habit whatsoever.
Book ownership has also collapsed. Where Irish children owned an average of 30 books in early 2023, that figure had fallen to 20 by late 2024. Last year’s figures show that more than half of children in Ireland now own 15 books or fewer. This decline is particularly stark among boys aged 11 to 16, with researchers pointing to a lack of male reading role models both at home and in the classroom.
Smartphones were identified as the primary reason for the decline. Children’s Books Ireland warned that unsupervised screen access from an early age, combined with shrinking home libraries, had proved a particularly damaging combination for reading culture.
Watch House Cross Community Library’s next book club meeting takes place on 24th of April, with more information on their summer programme due to be announced soon.