A new report says children who attend early childhood education are much better readers by the time they are teenagers than those who do not.
The analysis of New Zealand's 15-year-olds in an OECD reading test says the difference between students with more than a year of early childhood education and those with none is equivalent to a year and a half of schooling.
The study says there is a similiar difference between teenagers whose parents read to them in their first year of school and those whose parents did not.
It says students are also likely to be much better readers if their parents read books and talk to them regularly.
The report is based on analysis of Programme for International Student Assessment results published in 2011.
