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The home learning environment plays a vital role in children's early language, communication and literacy development. Through everyday interactions such as talking, reading, singing, playing and exploring together, parents and carers help to build the language, knowledge and confidence that underpin later learning. These experiences are especially influential in the early years but continue to shape children's educational outcomes, wellbeing and future opportunities throughout childhood and adolescence. Research consistently shows that the activities parents and carers share with their children can make an important contribution to children's development across a wide range of family circumstances. Given this important role, understanding how families experience and support children's early learning at home has become an increasing priority for researchers, practitioners and policymakers. Indeed, strengthening support for parents and carers is also a key priority of the National Year of Reading 2026, which recognises the role families play in fostering children's early language and literacy. Understanding how parents and carers engage with children at home, the confidence and knowledge they have, and the barriers they face is therefore essential for informing policy and practice that support children's reading from the earliest years. This need is particularly pressing given the current national picture. In 2025, 69.7% of children in the UK achieved the expected level of communication, language and literacy at the end of Reception, a small increase from 69.2% in 2024. However, 3 in 10 children (30.1%) did not reach the expected standard, rising to almost 1 in 2 (47.5%) among children eligible for free school meals (FSM). While overall attainment improved slightly, the gap between children eligible for FSM and their peers widened to 21.4 percentage points, the largest in four years. Recent longitudinal research also highlights widening inequalities in the home learning environment, with parents from higher-income households substantially more likely to read daily with their two-year-olds than parents from lower-income households. Understanding how parents and carers are supporting children's early language and literacy is therefore more important than ever. Since 2019, the National Literacy Trust has tracked how parents and carers support their children at home. This period has spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and growing pressures on families and early years services. These challenges have affected both the resources available to families and the time and capacity parents have to engage in everyday literacy activities. Against this backdrop, this report explores how parents and carers are currently supporting their children's early language and literacy, how this has changed over time, and the confidence, knowledge, motivations and barriers that shape the home learning environment. In the summer of 2026, the National Literacy Trust commissioned a Savanta survey in partnership with tonies® asking a nationally representative sample of 3,194 parents and carers of children aged five and under how often they engaged in a variety of activities known to support early literacy and learning with their child at home. Using the EPPE activities as a guide, activities asked about included chatting, playing, reading, singing, painting/drawing, digital learning activities and playing outside. This report outlines the 2026 surveys findings and compares these with findings from previous parent surveys. [This report was created in partnership with tonies®.] |