Tell me about how school monitors your Year 5’s reading

[Driposaurus]

Am interested in how school monitors reading of Year 5 children.

DS is a happy reader, reads well and independently by himself, usually 20 minutes a day. But the obligation to fill in the reading diary at least four times a week is getting in the way of reading and I’m worried about it putting him off reading. The reading diary is a document on Google classroom that requires starting up the laptop, and it not apparently acceptable to say (for example) “between Monday and Friday I read 5 times and covered 20 chapters of this book”, instead 5 entries must be made - if it’s not completed there’s a compulsory “homework club” at lunchtime to sort it out.

Anyway, before I go and Be That Parent, would be interested in how other Year 5 children’s reading is being monitored.

A teacher here
That's BONKERS !!!!!
I'd talk to the Head of English

Mine has a reading diary, a paper one. It has to be filled in each day and I have to sign it. The teacher stamps it and my child is awarded x amount of points

Another teacher here.. that sounds like a total faff. You might find it isn’t the teacher who is asking for this but possibly management instead. Sounds like admin for the sake of admin

I am a bit on the fence with this one.

I am a teacher of Y6 and I don't insist on a reading diary but...
Many children do not read daily.
The ones that are fluent readers sometimes stop reading at this age and instead spend hours on computer games. Whilst they are fluent readers, they are not developing their vocabulary or challenging themselves at all.
If you are honest, the main issue is that you don't want to be bothered and as your child's reading is good, it doesn't seem to be a priority.
I don't blame you. I am busy and hate the whole chore element of it, but it comes from good intentions to keep reading on the agenda.

Yes, I’m specifically not trying to teacher bash here, and although I have a feeling she might be the lead for English, I rather suspect it’s a management approach which is why I want to be prepared before I say anything.

I was - still am - a massive reader at 9 and I’d have hated it but I’m well aware that education (and the need for evidence, evidence, evidence) has changed lots since then.

Bit of an odd 1 at our school they use an online reading program which once you are declared a free reader you don't need to bother with so my dd finished was a free reader last year so she's not monitored now at all

@cansu some of it is that enabling it is a faff I can’t be bothered with (and I’d rather he be reading) and letting him start the laptop brings him dangerously close to the YouTube videos he’d rather be doing. And I honestly can’t see the difference between “read x over 3 days” compared to “read x1 on day 1, x2 on day 2, x3 on day 3”.

But the other but is that we’re dangerously close to the point to the answer of my suggestion: why don’t you read for a bit is “oh, mum, no, because then I’ll have to update my reading diary..”. He has read whole books he hasn’t written about because he doesn’t want to do the writing bit.

Mine have similar but a minimum of 4 reads of 20 minutes per day. We have to sign the Reading Record to say how many pages or a chapter or whatever they've read. Anyone failing to do this is "supported" to catch up at Reading Club during Friday lunch time.
My DC are always very anxious to avoid this and view it as a punishment rather than support. I don't think it encourages a love of reading and would rather they read for pleasure as and when but this has been the system throughout the school for years unfortunately.

Ds is year 5. No monitoring or reading diaries here, thank god. At parents evening they always just say “It’s obvious he’s a bookworm” and that’s the end of it. Maybe there are quiet individual interventions with children who are struggling, I don’t know.

Standard paper reading record here, and by year 5 they fill it in themselves at school every morning.

FWIW I also hate "just 5 minutes" of online maths/tables/spellings etc for this exact reason- all the turning on and logging in is a total ball ache, and then there are always arguments when it comes to turning it off again 🙄

What a nightmare. None of that where we are, they just request they read daily

No clue what our school expects - they've never mentioned it. However it's a struggle to stop our y5 from reading. We have to set an alarm to remind us to go and remind him to turn his light off at bedtime. If we forget hell happily read for a couple of hours. He's been free reading since y1 and as his older sister was known to be a book worm too I suspect he's totally off school's radar for reading. He is on their radar for other things though😂 because he has sen.

Reading diary stopped when DD moved to the Juniors. But the school had a fantastic Head of English, finding great books to keep them interested to read in lesson.

They also had twice a week library lessons where they chose books for friends, were challenged to read one new book a week (could also be a comic, a short story or a factual book) and one new genre a month. They earned house points and could read during lunch break if they wanted.

Could he write them all on, say, Sunday, and maybe just make a hand written note throughout the week? So note down on Monday that’s he’s read x pages of this book etc. And then transfer the info to the laptop all at once, once a week?
Or is that not allowed?

Ours has a paper reading record book, in which they need to write a few sentences about what they’ve read - which has been quite good for my own DS to learn how to summarise what he’s been reading.

He reads loads that doesn’t go into the record though.