The Future of Storytelling: How Children Will Read in the Future

The way children discover and enjoy stories is changing fast. In living rooms and classrooms, books now compete with screens, games, podcasts and AI. Will the next generation of readers grow up moving fluidly between all of them, or will it be something else entirely. Story telling has been around since the dawn of time and is a fundamental part of what makes us human. The question is not whether storytelling will change, but how to make sure those changes strengthen, rather than weaken, children’s reading lives.​

How children’s reading is changing

Over the last decade, enjoyment of traditional reading has declined, with recent surveys showing that fewer than half of children say they enjoy reading in their free time.

  At the same time, listening has surged: more children now choose audiobooks and podcasts than print books for pleasure, especially in older primary and early secondary years.​

Children’s reading is also becoming more “multimodal”: they jump between text, video, audio and interactive content, often within the same story or lesson. That flexibility brings opportunities for engagement, but it also means reading has to work harder to compete for attention.​

The future of storytelling

Several clear trends are shaping the future of how children will read and experience stories:

• Audio-first stories: Audiobooks and spoken stories are becoming a primary gateway into narrative for many children, supporting vocabulary, background knowledge and comprehension, even when decoding is still developing.​

• Interactive and immersive formats: AR, apps and early VR story experiences let children “step into” a book, influence what happens, or see scenes overlaid on the real world, which can increase motivation and time spent with stories when well designed.​

• AI and personalised tales: AI tools can now generate bedtime stories based on a child’s name, interests or choices, offering highly personal and responsive narratives, but also raising important questions about screen time, data and the role of adults as storytellers.​

In this landscape, stories will no longer live in one format. Children will encounter narratives through pages, pixels and voices, sometimes all at once.

What this means for children

The skills children need are expanding. Tomorrow’s readers must be able to:

• Move between print, audio and interactive content, drawing on listening, speaking and reading skills together.​

• Stay focused and reflective in a world of constant stimulation, building the deep attention that complex texts still demand.​

There is also a real risk of a widening gap. Children who mostly consume passive digital content may miss out on the practice in decoding, fluency and expressive language that comes from active reading, while others benefit from tools that blend support with real reading practice.​

Why active, voice-led reading matters

This is where read‑aloud technology can play a powerful role. Combining text, gentle audio support and real-time feedback on a child’s own voice brings together the best of old and new: the focus of reading, the confidence-building of performing a story, and the motivation of interactive tech.​

For children, that means:

• More chances to feel like successful readers, especially those who find print hard at first.

• Regular, low-pressure practice in fluency, expression and oracy, skills that underpin both literacy and wider learning.

A more hopeful future for reading

The future of storytelling does not have to be a story of print versus screens. It can be a future where technology helps more children fall in love with stories, while strengthening the core skills that reading demands. Tools that encourage children to speak, perform and interact with texts can turn them from passive content consumers into active readers with a voice.

For schools and families, the challenge is to choose technology that supports that vision: not replacing books, but sitting alongside them; not removing the effort of reading, but rewarding it. If we get that balance right, the next generation may read differently, but they can still grow up as confident, curious storytellers in their own right.