Headteachers called on parents to read more to their children after a major report warned of poor literacy standards in primary schools.
The Primary Review, based at the University of Cambridge, said children's reading skills had hardly benefited at all from the Government's £500million National Literacy Strategy.
Children were stressed about their school tests and losing their love of books in the drive to improve literacy, the researchers warned.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said parents had a "responsibility" to help children learn to love books.
He said it was time to review the Government's "imposed" reading education strategies that hamper progress and undermine children's pleasure of reading.
"A good start would be the re-introduction of quiet reading time into the school day," he said.
"Parents have a real responsibility here to ensure that there are good books in the home and that the bedtime story for younger children is seen as an essential part of quality time."
His comments followed a call from Children's Secretary Ed Balls last week for parents to spend 10 minutes a day reading to their children.
The Primary Review warned that reading standards had barely improved since the 1950s.
The researchers called for a major overhaul of the primary school testing regime amid warnings the current system could be giving up to a third of children the wrong grades.
