NORTH-west children are not spending enough time reading, a new survey has shown.

Almost half of children in the region are only spending two hours or less each week reading, in favour of other pastimes such as watching television or playing computer games.

The survey by Nestle Box Tops for Books found that one in nine North-western children did not read a single book in the last month and of those who were reading more regularly one in four do not read any non-fiction titles.

For the last five years Nestle Cereals have been helping schools in the region to raise cash by collecting Box Tops for Education tokens. This year Nestle is teaming up with publishers DK to provide schools with the chance to collect as many new educational books as they can from them.

For more information log on to www.boxtops4books.co.uk.