IT’S a very sad modern fact that parents now spend longer on their mobile phones than they do reading to their children.

In fact, it’s almost four times as long as they stare at computers, tablets and phones. They spend just 25 minutes reading to their children and more than 90 minutes on their technology.

This was revealed in a survey by reading charity BookTrust which also found that parents of 2,000 four to 11 year-olds were skipping pages as they read with their children, finishing the story before its natural end or refusing to read a second story.

Now, many parents are often very tired by the time children’s bedtime arrives and can’t face reading Hairy McLairy for the fifteenth time to the point where they don’t really need the book at all.

But, this is not only a special time for parents and children, a quiet time which helps calm everything down before sleeping, but also an opportunity to encourage children to enjoy books forever. Our children may not read books in the accepted form as they grow up. Increasingly, people are reading them on their phones, ipads and other devices.

It really doesn’t matter how stories are accessed but that they’re read at all. Stories open up our minds to life’s possibilities. They help us enhance the day to day by going into other worlds, places where life is very different.

Stretching the imagination and the vocabulary help our mental development. And there are so many wonderful stories out there. They start with simple children’s stories and young minds grow to embrace much more varied and sophisticated literature. Some stories endure. Classics like Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows and almost anything by Charles Dickens can give pleasure throughout a lifetime. There is always something fresh and new.

People like to talk abut the books they have read, to share experiences and appreciation of an author or a particular story. Stories inspire the young to write and keep individuals writing to try to aspire to the standards of their literary icons.

We may not think that such lofty achievements could possibly come from sitting down to read Squirrel Nutkin with your child, but it can. We owe it to our youngsters to expose them to stories of all kinds. You and they won’t regret it.