That homework diaries are a bit Big Brother?

[carocaro]

DS primary school seem obsessed about having comments from parents about reading, what they read, when they read, how they read etc etc. And I get it, they want us to read at home and we do, but what I don't like is feeling like I have to write something snippy and gleefull every week or day.

Teachers are public servants and provide a service for which they are paid and are therefore accountable. As a parent I am not accountable to the school and I refuse to prove myself as a parent helping my child to read with notes in the homework diary.

As if you don't write anything you don't care. I speak regularly to his teacher and do write in his diary and he reads stuff from school books to text on TV to magazines. Do I have to tell them that every second? Are they going to use it against you?

carocaro if you are listening to your child read, then it can surely take no more than one second to write the flipping thing.
Do it at the same time.

And remember these things are all about messages.
Messages to your children that you care.
Messages to the school that they care.

These are as important as the progress made through listening.

How hard can it be? Jeeze.

Lornmowa totally agree. I don't remember reading to my parents as a child and I can do it just fine. I found it ridiculous that I should still have to listen to an eleven year old (with a reading age above that) read once or twice a week. Reading to yourself is far quicker anyway than reading out loud which encourages verbalisation and slows down reading - not good for later on when at uni.

haven't read the full thread, but you might find that " speak regularly to his teacher " is fairly exceptional - most ppl are reliant on total of 20 mins at parents evening plus notes and find the homework diary v. valuable.

Litchick- exactly, that's the point of the OP, why should she send silly messages to that you care about your own children by writing in their record book (!) I am quite surprised how many children are sanctioned if they have not read and been signed off.

I have utterly given up communicating via the book and have borrowed my own reading scheme from a teacher. If we go the school's pace, we will still be learning one letter or digraph a week for years, and my daughter has been stuck on similar level books (which are not in a scheme and are all just random with random words in them) since she started. Yes, I have been in to ask her to move up a level (granted, as I asked nicely), yes, I have written in the reading book thousands of time 'she read her book nicely with lots of expression' but she is just getting discouraged with the lack of progress and general rubbishness of the books. I have just abandoned their one book a week snail's pace of progress and am doing two books a night at home with her. I can't write the truth in the book as it would be very critical, so I have to create a 'fake' record to make it look like we did something with their rubbish books. How crazy is that?

And, yes, I could go back in again and discuss why they can't get it together to help a self-motivated bright child who is desperate to read to read, but I can't be bothered.

Lornmowa I would definitely make more time for sex if I had to report on it, so maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing

Many of you are AGAIN totally missing my OP, I am not too lazy to write in the book as I have said many, many times, I write in it!But I will not write in it every night just for the sake of it, just to box tick. I can't beleive that some of think it's OK to lie and write that reading has been done when it has not been, what is that teaching you child?

I write in it when there is something usefull to say. My DS has different books at school to those brought home to be read. So there is no point in writing read pages 12-16 in a book he won't pick up again in the morning.

And I said there is nothing offensive about being a public servant, they are accountable, it's fact, like I am in my job, if I mess up I have to be responsible and so do teachers. Public servants do not hold divine rights over other members of the working public. It's all this booh hoo I volunteer and don't get paid for the ASC (so don't do it) and work till 8pm (like many of us).

And I am setting a good example to my child by questioning a method which leaves little to be desired, if simply used as a method of ticking boxes.

Signing once a week is ok. Signing and writing once a day is daft.

If a parent writes in a diary, I assume that they are reading with the child. Great - everyone's happy.

If a parent can't be arsed to write in a diary I assume that the child isn't reading. (How can I know that they are?!)

The 'p 11-12' comment lets me know that a child has read. The blank space tells me nothing.

It is nothing to do with being public servants or accountability, it is just a form of communicating what you are doing at home with your child.

No-one is 'boohoo hooing' here. I hate siging the bloody things too. But I do use them as an information source of children who are or who are not reading at home, and this will help flag up any problems in progress in class. I use it to HELP me account for the progress of the children. It is part of my job.

It is not a 'method of ticking boxes'. It is a means of providing information.