To falsify my child's reading diary?

[bookworm80]

This year our school has made reading every night compulsory homework. The children have to read at least 5 times a week and enter it into a reading diary.
We are big book lovers in our house and I don't want to put my child off reading by insisting she do it when she is not in the mood. She does sporting clubs 3 times a week and is often tired after school. I don't want it to seem like another thing to get through or a punishment. I still read to her on a night which she loves, and she is a great reader herself so I really don't see the need for pushing it.
At the start of the year she was in trouble with her new teacher for not reading as much as she should. I went to see the teacher to explain my views. She totally didn't get it. So since November we have been falsifying my daughter's reading diary. She reads a good chapter twice a week but we enter it into her diary as 5 different entries. My daughter is happy and her teacher is happy, but I feel guilty (have even name changed as wouldn't want anyone to know). What do you think? AIBU?

I asked a friend who is a teacher. He said those reading records are useful for the teacher only when you get one of those parents that complains their child hasn't improved enough. I was glad as I found it such a faff . I think it's better to sit together on the sofa and read a load in a relaxed way a few times a week.

I'm old-fashioned and think children should read every day. It's like music practice. Reading to her isn't the same.

I don't agree. I think DD's Reading has really been helped by following the books when I read to her. She's a good reader. In the top group also. I never force her to read.

I practiced and played music every single day through high school, played in orchestras and chamber groups, got grade 8, yada, yada...

I put my flute down when I left school, and 25+ years later, have probably picked it up twice since then. It was a relief not to have to.

Reading, on the other hand, I continue to love. It has always, and will always, be for pleasure.

I do this, and like PP it's not because I don't care about my child's education but because I don't believe it's actually necessary - and my son is an excellent reader! Again, the school insists on it being spread in daily short bursts across the week, and they make you feel shitty if you don't. I feel like we need to be settled and calm and quiet for optimum reading time, and to discuss the book etc. If we did that for just ten minutes I can't see how that is as effective as actually spending most of ONE whole evening a week leisurely reading together, discussing, using newly discovered words in a new sentence and all of that. My son most certainly does read daily - at school, at the bus stop, walking past shops, helping with recipes and endless other scenarios. I am happy with my white lies in the reading book, and at the last parents evening the teacher was gushing about how my 'hard work' of daily reading was really paying off because my son is one of the most fluent readers and writers in the class...and that SOME parents have the audacity to dare refuse to read daily...... she wishes they had more 'dedicated' parents like me and bla bla bla.... Of course I just nodded sagely. I had to stifle an evil laugh!!

I had numerous run ins over dds reading diary in the early years. She was top table free reading and had read every book in the school by year 3.

Year 3 teacher wanted her to re read them and enter in her diary as having read to me. I said no. Both of us were bored with school books and would read our own books and enter. Teacher wanted dd to bring them in with her so she could check the content.

We had bought dd a kindle so I refused as didn't want kindle in school. Teacher said I would have to buy physical books to take in. I said no as she had a full library of books on her kindle. I would take kindle once a week and go through with teacher if she wanted. Teacher didn't have time, just send physical books. I asked if she needed a book for the free reading part of the week as would be happy to buy one for that reason. No. Free reading must be from a school book.

I went to the head in the end. It was absolutely ridiculous. Dd was then 'allowed' to read and log books from kindle and bring her own book from home for free reading in school. Except twice a year on reading challenges when for 2 weeks of a 38 week school year (so 4 weeks in total) we were subjected to school books again. Sigh.

Surely once you are free-reading the way to encourage that habit is to let the child read a whole chapter at a time, so the story makes sense and works the way the author intended it? Spreading it out over bitty little 10 minute sessions just so it fits a schedule seems a dreadful way of consuming literature. Who can get into a proper chapter book in 10 minutes?

My DS Y4 teacher named and shamed anyone who hadn't written in their reading diaries every day in front of the whole class! In a way it got my DS into the habit of doing it but he is also terrified of being told off so now on holidays, weekends, christmas he'll get into a right state if he hasn't written anything in his bloody diary (he still reads). He is now in Y5 and his new teacher isn't that bothered but my DS still frets. I actively tell him that read as you do and spread it over the days in the diary! YANBU

I had the same issue when mine were little, they were both excellent readers and I used to falsify their reading diaries too, YANBU.

I do this too. The teacher writes NR in big letters if it's left blank which I find quite aggressive.

I would guess most people do this, if your child is on target for reading I see no harm.
Dh and I never did this, nor did we take turns to make it more believable

Cross out the N, HitsAndMrs . Also, write your record the same way. A daily "R".

Perfect paxillan I have crossed it out before and wrote AMAZING READING!

We had an enthusiastic teacher who said "ask the child to dictate the reading journal entry to you". We duly did. "This book is boring." "I wish we had books about dinosaurs in school." "I don't like Biff, Chip and Kipper." "A whole book about forgetting the rucksack."

After a week, the teacher said to go back to just saying "read x pages" .

I do this and am pleasantly surprised that many others seem to as well. We certainly don't read every night but on Monday dd followed me round the house reading five chapters of Matilda so I think that's us for the week. I will gently encourage the rest of it over the weekend.

I never did it with DS either and he's currently working his way through all Bill Bryson's books at age 13 and laughing his head off at them. He prefers non fiction but I honestly think he'd have been turned off reading completely if I had kept shoving Roald Dahl at him.

I do this too! (With different coloured pens and varying numbers of minutes read per day to make it look more authentic :-))

My dd is a great reader and book lover, but it completely takes the joy out of her reading when I police her to read xx minutes per day. She often reads hours at a go, or nothing some days. I prefer to let her lead on this.

I'm old-fashioned and think children should read every day. It's like music practice. Reading to her isn't the same.

Reading to your child is just as important as it increases their vocabulary, especially reading books that they would struggle reading on their own.

I just want to know why the books they bring home from school are sooooooo boring? That's enough to put them off of reading for life.

YANBU OP, falsify away

I do this. When my eldest was about seven and reading Harry Potter by himself every night, the teacher STILL wanted us to read with him and write it in his book. Utter madness.

DC3 is a reluctant reader and I don't want him to feel it's a chore. So we read when he is amenable to it and I lie like a motherfucker on the other nights.

Is it the same book for a week or different book a night? My DD is reception so it is the same book for a week. We read it most nights but I do one entry for the week.

My DS Y4 teacher named and shamed anyone who hadn't written in their reading diaries every day in front of the whole class! In a way it got my DS into the habit of doing it but he is also terrified of being told off so now on holidays, weekends, christmas he'll get into a right state if he hasn't written anything in his bloody diary (he still reads). He is now in Y5 and his new teacher isn't that bothered but my DS still frets.

This is shocking! But the response should be to go to the head, then to the governors, etc, not to falsify the reading diary - because otherwise teachers get away with these dreadful practices year after year, putting more and more children off reading for life.

We had a letter come home about reading at least 3 nights a week, together with writing comments in the diary. DD, 8yo, is a fluent reader and I don't usually bother to monitor what she's reading as she's the sort of kid where the conversations are along the lines of 'I've told you not to read while you are walking down the stairs, 'You can't read while walking on the pavement, you'll bump into someone.' 'I told you twenty minutes ago to go to sleep, put the book down'. Mostly her last bit of reading is done in bed and I dont then produce a diary and say 'now write it all down'. It's more 'Stop arguing, put the book down and SLEEP!'
Her teacher is more than happy she's reading, but her take on it was that reading is the hardest part of a child's education to prove. To the extent that DD did actually get singled out by Ofsted last term as her reading record was sparse and they felt her teacher was putting her at too high a level. Her teacher then had to try to prove her grading.
So we are being far more diligent about writing things down. I've been told it's ok to record a conversation about the book, so if we are in the car and chat about the plot or a character, I can record that as evidence of her reading.

DD gets one easy and boring book home a week and the reading marker says to read 1/2 the book on Monday and the other half on Wednesday. The reality is she reads the whole thing in less than 5 mins on an Monday night. I sign the marker for the 2 seperate days.

She reads a chapter or 2 of her own books in bed every night so I'm not worried.

It didn't occur to me that DD is actually meant to be reading the books that come home from school. She's recently become a free reader, so I assumed any book would do. The school books haven't improved since she became a free reader so we read each night (ish) from our selection at home. I'm obviously not going to ask her teachers about this as I don't want to find out that she should be reading the school books, but is this generally frowned on?

I am shocking with hwk over here, reading isnt compulsory ...it just gets forgotten..

I wouldn't lie in the reading diary, I just wouldn't do the reading. And if tell them why.

Lying could make things awkward for the child if the teacher comments on how much/what they've read etc.

I only write stuff that might actually be useful for the teacher - so "ds enjoyed xxx, has read 12 Asterix books over the summer and enjoying more, but found [book like one in class] way too scary"

He now gets sent home with lots of historical but not scary books. Sometimes I write "read book" and add ditto marks for a few days. About once a fortnight they write "ds read [book] with lovely intonation and he explained what [some big words] meant. Well done!". Usually interspersed with "ds refused to read xxx to the supply teacher/TA as he said it was boring and he'd read it already". Teacher and I are working on politeness...