Age 3 — Preschool (PreK)
15 min read-aloud · 5 min independent
Read aloud together and talk about the pictures. Sing rhymes, clap syllables, and let your child 'read' a familiar book back to you from memory.
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How much should my child read each day?
Pick your child's age or grade below. You'll get a daily target split into two numbers that matter for different reasons: minutes you read to them, and minutes they read themselves.
1st grade · around age 6
20
minutes a day
you read to your child
15
minutes a day
your child reads themselves
Daily total35 minutes
4 hrs
Per week
105 hrs
Per school year
60 wpm
Typical fluency
What that time should look like
Daily decoding practice with books they can mostly read alone. Expect slow, effortful reading — that is normal. Keep reading aloud to feed vocabulary.
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Daily reading time by age and grade
The same recommendations in one chart. Fluency figures are 50th-percentile end-of-year oral reading rates in words correct per minute (wcpm) from Hasbrouck & Tindal's 2017 norms — a reference point, not a target to drill.
| Age | Grade | Read aloud | Child reads | Daily total | Typical fluency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Preschool (PreK) | 15 min | 5 min | 20 min | Pre-reading |
| 4 | Preschool (PreK) | 20 min | 5 min | 25 min | Pre-reading |
| 5 | Kindergarten | 20 min | 10 min | 30 min | Pre-reading |
| 6 | 1st grade | 20 min | 15 min | 35 min | 60 wcpm |
| 7 | 2nd grade | 20 min | 20 min | 40 min | 100 wcpm |
| 8 | 3rd grade | 15 min | 20 min | 35 min | 112 wcpm |
| 9 | 4th grade | 15 min | 25 min | 40 min | 133 wcpm |
| 10 | 5th grade | 10 min | 30 min | 40 min | 146 wcpm |
| 11 | 6th grade | 10 min | 30 min | 40 min | 146 wcpm |
| 12 | 6th grade and up | 10 min | 30 min | 40 min | 146 wcpm |
What the minutes should actually look like, age by age
Time on task only helps if it is spent on the right skill. Here is what to practise at each stage.
Age 4 — Preschool (PreK)
20 min read-aloud · 5 min independent
Keep reading aloud daily and add letter sounds. Play I-Spy with first sounds ('I spy something that starts with /m/') and point to words as you read them.
Age 5 — Kindergarten
20 min read-aloud · 10 min independent
Read aloud above their level, then let them sound out short decodable books themselves. Blending (/c/ /a/ /t/ → cat) is the skill that matters most this year.
Age 6 — 1st grade
20 min read-aloud · 15 min independent
Daily decoding practice with books they can mostly read alone. Expect slow, effortful reading — that is normal. Keep reading aloud to feed vocabulary.
Age 7 — 2nd grade
20 min read-aloud · 20 min independent
Re-reading favorite passages builds fluency fast. Longer vowel patterns and two-syllable words come online. Keep the read-aloud going — it is still doing the heavy vocabulary lifting.
Age 8 — 3rd grade
15 min read-aloud · 20 min independent
The shift from learning-to-read to reading-to-learn. Chapter books, prefixes and suffixes, and talking about what they just read.
Age 9 — 4th grade
15 min read-aloud · 25 min independent
Independent reading volume is the main driver now. Mix in non-fiction. Read-aloud time can become you and your child alternating chapters.
Age 10 — 5th grade
10 min read-aloud · 30 min independent
Protect a daily 30-minute independent block. Let them choose the books — choice is the single biggest predictor of whether the habit sticks.
Age 11 — 6th grade
10 min read-aloud · 30 min independent
Independent reading plus conversation. A shared book you both read and discuss keeps the read-aloud benefit without feeling babyish.
Age 12 — 6th grade and up
10 min read-aloud · 30 min independent
Reading volume and stamina. Audiobooks count for vocabulary and comprehension. Aim for 30+ minutes of self-selected reading most days.
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Frequently asked questions
How many minutes a day should my child read?
It depends on age. A 4-year-old needs about 20 minutes of being read to and 5 minutes of handling books themselves. A 6-year-old needs roughly 20 minutes of read-aloud plus 15 minutes of their own decoding practice. By age 10, the balance flips: about 30 minutes of independent reading and 10 minutes of shared reading or discussion. Total daily reading time sits between 20 and 40 minutes at every age from 3 to 12.
Does being read to still count once my child can read on their own?
Yes, and it matters more than most parents expect. A child's listening comprehension outruns their reading ability until roughly age 13, so reading aloud is how they meet vocabulary and sentence structures they cannot yet decode themselves. Keep reading aloud above their independent reading level for as long as they will let you.
Do audiobooks count as reading?
Audiobooks count toward the read-aloud side of the ledger, not the independent reading side. They build vocabulary, background knowledge, and comprehension — but they do not build decoding, which is the skill that has to be practised with eyes on print. Use them as a supplement, not a replacement.
What if my child refuses to read for that long?
Shorten the session rather than abandoning it. Ten focused minutes every day beats forty minutes on Sunday, because reading skill is built by frequency. If reading consistently ends in tears or refusal, that is usually a signal that the material is too hard rather than that the child is unwilling — drop to books they can read with about 95% accuracy.
Is 20 minutes a day actually based on research?
The familiar '20 minutes a day' figure traces back to Anderson, Wilson and Fielding's 1988 study of how children spend time outside school, which found large differences in annual words read between children who read a few minutes a day and those who read twenty. It is a useful floor rather than a magic number — the underlying finding is that reading volume, accumulated daily, predicts vocabulary and comprehension growth.
What is a normal reading speed for my child's grade?
Using Hasbrouck and Tindal's 2017 oral reading fluency norms, a typical (50th percentile) student reads about 60 words correct per minute by the end of 1st grade, 100 by the end of 2nd, 112 by the end of 3rd, 133 by the end of 4th, and about 146 by the end of 5th and 6th. Speed alone is not the goal — accuracy and comprehension come first.
Where these numbers come from
- Daily reading aloud: American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Early Childhood. “Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice.” Pediatrics, 2014 — the AAP advises daily shared reading starting in infancy.
- Fluency benchmarks (wcpm): Hasbrouck, J. & Tindal, G. “An Update to Compiled ORF Norms.” Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, 2017 — 50th-percentile spring rates by grade.
- Reading volume: Anderson, R.C., Wilson, P.T. & Fielding, L.G. “Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School.” Reading Research Quarterly, 1988 — the study behind the familiar “20 minutes a day” guidance.
The minute recommendations are our practical synthesis of this guidance for at-home practice. Every child is different — treat these as a target to aim at, not a rule to fail.
Keep reading
- How much should a child read each day? Real guidelines by age →
- How long should a 7-year-old read each day? →
Worried your child is behind rather than just under-practised? Take the 2-minute reading check, or browse our reading guides by topic.