Student engagement with learning simply would not happen without an incredible amount of parental support and improving student reading is no exception.  The importance of children reading cannot be underestimated and is well worth the 20 minutes that anyone can invest in getting their child to read for.  This became all the more obvious in a study I read recently that compared three students’ reading habits (Nagy and Herman).  The first student spent 20 minutes a day reading before bed, this equals 3600 minutes a school year.  As such this student read for the equivalent of 60 whole school days which means they were reading roughly 1,800,000 words.  The second student considered in the study read for 5 minutes each day which is 900 minutes a school year and the equivalent of 12 whole school days.  In turn exposing them to 282,000 words. The third student in the study read for 1 minute a day.  This translates into 180 minutes in a school year which is the equivalent of 12 whole school days spent reading and them processing 8,000 words.  The contrast between the first and third student is considerable when looked at in terms of educational success and life chances.  Reading helps improve children’s memory and concentration as well as improving their communication skills.  To challenge your child and engage them in a deeper level of reading and critical thinking, do get them to make inferences around the text by asking what they think will happen next or to draw conclusions about what they have read.  This process of synthesising their reading by summarising and retelling the information will further develop your child as a reader.  Any time that a child spends reading is beneficial for their mental health as well as their education.