QUIRKY WORLD: Boxing clever: How early-morning reading helps

ENGLAND: Children should be encouraged to read from their cereal boxes at breakfast time, the headmaster of Eton has said.

Dubbing it the ‘Cornflakes test’, Tony Little said children, especially boys, can benefit from reading in many different forms including magazines and puzzle books.

Mr Little, whose book, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education, is serialised in The Times, said: “Even the ‘Cornflakes test’ can be revealing — does your bleary-eyed child read the text on the side of the cereal pack at breakfast? The reading habit is a muscle that needs to be exercised daily.”