Infographic: Reading achievement, hunger and tiredness Infographic: Reading achievement, hunger and tiredness

Of course, making sure the child is not hungry or tired will help them concentrate better but if the reading instruction is not world’s best practice then no amount of food or sleep will enable them to reach their full potential.

Children from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds are much less likely to read because you cannot eat books and parents choose to scrape enough together for food. Anything else is a luxury. This is why it is so important to have good school libraries so all students can borrow books. Not being able to read, or read well, severely limits a child’s future potential. They cannot access written material easily at school, their results suffer and chances slip away.

As for tiredness, some of that is due to children’s preoccupation with gaming and devices. Televisions and computers, mobile phones and gaming devices are in bedrooms because parents to not understand the effect these have on sleep. Once the bedroom door is closed, the usage goes on. Have a look at the findings of the effect of gaming on the brain by Baroness Susan Greenfield, senior research fellow at Oxford University. It is truly sobering. Many children are ‘doped’ up and their brain just does not get a rest.