Why Read 30 Minutes a Day to My Child? If daily reading begins in infancy, by the time the child is five years old,  he or she has been fed roughly 900 hours of brain food! Reduce that experience to just 30 minutes a week and the child's hungry mind  loses 770 hours of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and stories. A kindergarten student who has not been read aloud to could enter school  with less than 60 hours of literacy nutrition. No teacher, no matter how  talented, can make up for those lost hours of mental nourishment. Therefore... 30 minutes daily: 900 hours 30 minutes weekly: 130 hours Less than 30 minutes weekly: 60 hours