2026 has been designated as the Year of Reading in the UK. This government initiative has been designed to address the decline in reading by children and young people. The programme of work is structured under four main headings:

  • Promote Reading for Pleasure: to encourage people of all ages to engage with books and foster a lifelong love of reading. 
  • Address Literacy Decline: to tackle falling reading and literacy levels among children, young people, and adults. 
  • Build a Stronger Reading Culture: to inspire community reading champions and create an environment where reading is accessible and valued everywhere. 
  • Support Diverse Audiences: to connect with new audiences and ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to benefit from reading.

The decline in reading has continued over time, but the current levels, with less than 20% of children reading something daily in their free time, appear to be alarmingly low, so it’s easy to appreciate the feeling that it is time for concerted action.

Across the thematic areas for action, the concept of looking to unlock new and innovative ways to engage readers will remain constant. There are opportunities across the reading community for collective action, with a call for partnerships to come together having attracted a diverse range of organisations so far.

One cross-cutting approach that may provide an interesting perspective is how personalised audio can play a role. There is potential in the tailoring of stories in the voices of people we value, love and trust to communicate tales of inspiration, but all key aspects of learning.

For readers at the start of their learning journey, audio can open up the world of stories in a simple and engaging way. Whether it’s the true starting point, as a way to improve pronunciation or vocabulary, or to meet the accessibility needs of a growing audience who prefer alternatives to words on the page, personalised audio has the potential to be a key delivery strand.

Building community cohesion is vital to fostering participation. Reading can be a solitary activity – personal, reflective, introspective. But it’s in the sharing of stories that our love of reading can build and thrive.

The quality of a story can often hook us in, but when looking to reignite a love of stories and reading a population level, some new tactics need to be considered.

Personalised audiobooks might be a useful tool, given the way in which they take meaningful voices, match them with treasured stories, and allow people to share them across their families and networks.

When seeking to engage a disaffected target audience, it makes sense to approach on their own preferred terms. Use of technology is widespread among the young people who are vital to the success of the programme, so engaging via digital channels will be a key element of success.

But a blended approach will likely be important, not least because people still value the printed word. Parents introduce their children to stories by reading from picture books, fables and folk tales, with the spoken versions used as bedtime stories. There’s a role for personalised audio when a particular soothing voice matches a favourite tale, but the physical book remains a solid foundation around which to build.

The Year of Reading has a chance to deliver transformative change for a generation of readers who – like all of us – deserve the best possible start in life.

Practical next steps should focus on evidence, equity, and ethics. For example, it might be helpful to test some specific use cases and capture findings. These could include read-along personalised audio paired with decodable texts for Key Stage 1; stories voiced by trusted adults for reluctant readers aged 8–12; multilingual recordings that let families hear the same story in English and a heritage language; or accessibility-first versions for dyslexic and visually impaired readers.

There could be a focus on lowering barriers to participation. Libraries and schools could host voice booths to capture – with their permission – voices from caregivers, teachers, and community figures. Printed books could carry QR codes linking to the personalised track, keeping the primacy of print while adding an additional audio layer. Providing clear guardrails is paramount with a need for opt-in models, revocable voice rights, secure storage, and transparent data retention policies. Prioritising accessibility by offering adjustable narration speed, dyslexia-friendly typography in companion texts, and transcripts will also be key to success.

Another area of action could be designing for cultural relevance and joy. Local authors and small presses could be commissioned to co-create micro-stories with an emphasis on folk tales and seasonal stories rooted in communities. Youth organisations could be supported to run record-a-story challenges that reward listening streaks tied to library visits, not screen time.

Finally, sustainability is a key challenge to address. If personalised audio is positioned as a companion to print, not a competitor, the Year of Reading can normalise a blended model that meets learners where they are and nudges them, gently and consistently, back toward books. It will be interesting to see what trends and solutions emerge, and how we can best act collegiately to deliver them to the maximum possible impact.