Let's read! A call for a reading offensive

Young people in the Netherlands are reading less and less often and with less and less enjoyment. Although they do read lots of short texts – messages on their smartphones or brief summaries in school textbooks – they spend less time on ‘deep reading’: thoughtful, concentrated reading of longer texts or books. This is leading to a decline in their reading skills. That in turn has an impact on their functioning at school and in society, and ultimately also on the functioning of Dutch society as a whole.