to not force my teenager to read a book a week?

[milafawny]

My 15 year old daughters school have initiated a new reading scheme that states every child must read a book "for pleasure" each week and produce a written report on it for every Monday.

I have a few objections to this.

Firstly, this is not "reading for pleasure", this is enforced reading with follow up home work each week.

The selection of books isn't open, they have to read books provided on the app on their iPad, again, making it not "for pleasure" when they cant select the book.

The smallest book in the selection is 300 pages long. Most are longer. The largest has 1200+ pages. Expecting a book of that size to be finished weekly along with a completed report, on top of GSCE level homework, is a big ask.

Specifically regarding my daughter, she is diagnosed with both dyslexia and ADHD. She has already be informed in school that this scheme is expected of her too. Reading is not, nor has it every been, an activity she does for pleasure. Its takes her time, she gets frustrated and upset when she cant understand or stay focussed. We have tactics in place for when she has to read, usually breaking it into smaller sections but this doesn't allow for reading longer texts, but these tactics are not enough to have her motivated to read a different book every single week. She cannot read something aloud at all. She still find its difficult to focus attention long enough to watch a film. In something she has no interest in, namely reading, she's not even going to manage 5 minutes. I have bought her many many books over the years that are ones she has expressed an interest in - most are non-fiction biology books. Ive tried with books of things she has shown interest in, such as horrible history's that are more factual. None of the selection of books are like this, they are all fictional story based. We have tried harry potter and hunger games as we broke the films down and watched it as you would watch a tv show, i think she managed the first chapter of book 1 of harry potter in a month. She gets no enjoyment from it.

Would IBU to email school and state my daughter is not participating in the scheme, and expect this not to result in a weekly detention due to the reasons i have outlined?

Yes i have it all in writing. I copied the section over to her form tutor who i contacted initially and i said i find this extremely ableist and i wont be responding to that teacher again.

The current suggestion is i read the books aloud to her or listen to the audiobooks whilst reading along in the book with her to ensure she stays engaged. Yes, ok, i shall fit that in between my 4 x 12.5 hour shifts a week, completing my masters, helping her with her usual homework, usual life admin, and my two other children that also, amazingly, need my time and ill do all this as a single parent. I can most definitely fit in reading a 30 hour book out loud to her in a week.

FFS.

Reading for pleasure should include free choice of a book and free choice of a timescale. A more reasonable thing for the school would be to give some guidelines on the weekly amount of reading that they would expect a child of her age to do and leave it at that. Weekly report is just a tick-box exercise to ensure they do what they are told. I bet no teacher is thrilled having to read through them at the weekend either.
Any kind of enforcement would likely put a child off reading for life. My parents forced me to read a chapter every day, typically of the books they found interesting themselves. I still remember the horrors of reading Little Prince to this day. As an autistic child I was always into things like encyclopedia and non-fiction but my parent's wouldn't entertain that. Did it make me love reading? Not a bit! I picked it up when I was much much older and could make my own decisions about what I wanted to read.

I feel for you OP. No one needs this complete bullshit in their lives!

Respond back exactly what you’ve said here, because it’s incredibly valid. It’s like they forget you have a life, job and other kids.

Then keep a copy of everything, send to the head teacher, copy in governers and ofsted. They are having their chance to resolve it and they are massively blowing it.

In your response, make it clear you will of course be helping with GCSE work, but outside of this is not reasonable.

I haven't read the whole thread but a quick Google brought up that Crime and Punishment takes 11 hours 58 minutes for the 'average' reader. That is not achievable for any but the most very very able student in the 45 minutes to an hour they are expected to read.

(In fact I am pretty sure almost no 15 year old could read it properly in that time frame)

I don't think maths is the English departments strong point

I am/ was an avid reader. This would not have been pleasurable in any way shape or form. (And I still haven't read Crime and Punishment)

@JaneyGee I am highly intelligent. I enjoy reading Sartre in the original French because I am fluent in 4 languages and enjoy literary fiction as well as lighter stuff. I do not enjoy Dickens, I prefer the Brontes, Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot.

Your post is therefore incorrect.

😂😂😂

Really appreciate all these posts clapping back at the ‘intelligent’ remark originally directed at me 😁

And yes! I also think books you have to study become more enjoyable once you actually choose to study the subject later on.

I studied French at a level and uni, I enjoyed Les Mains Sales and I LOVE Voltaire.

Googling the same for The Count of Monte-Cristo says 31 hours!

@milafawny I think at this point you have no option other than to email the head and the board of governors explaining that a) its hugely ableist, b) it's a proven way to make kids hate reading, it's c) impossible for you to follow their ridiculous suggestions and that you will not be asking your daughter to do this.

You could offer an alternative - she could do a book review each half term, but in your view her GSCE work should be the priority and you're not willing to risk her grades because of some ridiculous scheme that won't work.

Great! Originally they were bullying her and now they are bullying you.

As a teacher, I am horrified they won't even sit someone hearing impaired by a wall and at the front. What is wrong with them?! When was their last Ofsted?

@WeWereInParis it took my admittedly slow-reading DP months to read TCOMC reading for about the amount of time recommended for the OP's DD. Months!

If I were your DD @milafawny I'd be going to chat GPT and typing in "write me a 500 word report on x book, UK English, in the style and tone of a 16 year old". and leave it at that. I expect that's what 99% of the kids will be doing, even if they've read the darned book, and TBH I don't really blame them.

The school are so, so wrong on this & I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with it.

As well as being hugely ableist towards your daughter it’s just very bad pedagogy in terms of encouraging reading for pleasure.

You encourage kids to read by making a wide range of literature available to them & making space in the day for them to enjoy it - reading quietly at form time, being read aloud to in English lessons, a rewards system
but that’s linked to quality of reading experience rather than quantity, signposting kids to, “if you liked this you might also like…”. Etc etc

It depends how much time & energy you have OP but there is lots of evidence & research that this is not the right approach to encouraging reading. Here for example, https://ourfp.org/reading-for-pleasure-pedagogy/.

How well do you know other parents? Would others support you/ join with iou in talking to the head?

@MariaVT65 I read Le diable et le bon dieu in year 12 for my French A level equivalent (I grew up in the Netherlands) and loved it. We had no set books, we just had to get them approved by the teacher. I also did Anouilh, Flaubert, Racine, Gide and Camus.

I did not read any Dickens for my English A level equivalent.

I have no time for people who think there are must read writers which determine whether or not one is intelligent. It's snobbish bullshit.

Part of me is at the utter stupidity of this school's approach to reading.

A Tale of Two Cities isn't Great Expectations.

I read one as an older teen and the other as a young adult.

One of the issues with GCSE and A level book lists is they can put you off reading that author for pleasure.

Where did I say it was @Reugny ? I was responding to the comment that was made that if you don't like Dickens you must be thick.

@BitOutOfPractice The poster you actually replied to didn't say children who didn't read Dickens were thick, even though they had odd ideas on reading to children.

Anyway my point is different books by the same author are easier and a pleasure to read if you are older and forcing children to read them can put them off.

You obviously interpreted this comment differently from me @Reugny

"But not all children find Dickens "boring crap." A lot of them are intelligent."

Perhaps I need to improve my reading comprehension 😉

@Reugny read the post. It's very clearly implied that not liking Dickens = thick.

It seems wholly unreasonable to impose on any child who may/may not have a disability but is a reluctant reader (which maybe for a variety of reasons).
One of my DC is a slow as in they get fed up of reading so reading a book takes ages, but is a perfectly competent reader. AFAIK they have no disabilities, but would not be up for making room in their life for reading a whole book a week. In their world, they wouldn't have time and it wouldn't be a priority and forcing them to read would turn them further away from reading.

OP, just forget doing the task at all. The Head of English wasn't interested in any kind of compromise and made ableist statements. I find it really offensive that she said your daughter just needs to practise.
You were willing to try to find a solution, yet they are refusing to be moved and don't seem to have any idea that there is no way in hell you could find the time to sit and listen to an audiobook with her while pointing to the text.
The entire scheme is flawed.

Escalate the complaint immediately to the head and chair of governors.
You won't be doing the task.
Quote the ableist statements from the Head of English.
Say the school are not making reasonable adjustments for your child's disabilities.

And while you're at it, get on about the hearing aid situation. I think it's appalling that the adjustment to have her sit at the front of the class near a wall hasn't been implemented.
What kind of shit school is this`?

If you do not receive an immediate, satisfactory response from the head and/or chair of governors. Escalate to the local authority.

I am disgusted on your behalf.

I was thinking about this last night when I was supposed to be asleep. There are plenty of things they could have done to engage children and encourage reading for pleasure.
They could have started with short stories for one.
When I was 21 and living in Scotland I needed to do Higher English nightclass because I wanted to get into teaching and had to have Higher English to do a PGCE in Scotland. My GCSE from England wasn't adequate. I absolutely loved that class. I thought the teacher was fantastic, really engaging.
There was a wide range of abilities in the class - quite a few were young people who had failed their Higher English several times, hated reading etc. There were also older people who wanted to retrain etc, many of whom hadn't read for years.
The teacher began with short stories. I had never read short stories before - but if you find good ones, they are fantastic - character development and plot all nicely wrapped up in a few pages at most. Once we'd done a term of short stories and everyone was getting really engaged in the course, including the few younger ones who had failed previously and all but given up, we started on a novel - Angela's Ashes - as the film was coming out at that time. Interspersed with a lot of poetry too.
We went out as a group to watch the film and had a fantastic time afterwards discussing it.

That's what outstanding English teaching looks like and that's how you engage people who are maybe not into reading at all.

If that Head of English was any good at all she could have suggested your daughter reads a short story a week and write a very short summary. Or a newspaper article about something biological as she is interested in that. Or poetry.
But no. Your daughter apparently just needs to practise and she'll be reading Crime and Punishment in a week.

I understand their focus on reading, but as you say, this just isn’t achievable. I think in your shoes, I’d be requesting a meeting with the English teacher, Head of English and SENCO to discuss how this scheme can be (massively) adjusted to work for pupils with SEN. I’d mention reasonable adjustments and the disability act in that meeting if need be. I’m a former English teacher, so very much in favour of encouraging reading, but this isn’t the way.

Even "intelligent" people can find the likes of Dickens boring crap!

No Dickens's novels are neither boring nor crap, but they are long, very long. I don't think it requires intelligence so much but certainly the ability to devote a considerable about of time to them. (Though a fraction of the time it would take to read the Count of Monte Cristo!)

I can't bear Dickens. His women are awful and he was frightful to his wife.

I prefer Wilkie Collins.

^It depends how much time & energy you have OP but there is lots of evidence & research that this is not the right approach to encouraging reading.^

Lots of evidence! I think an ounce of common sense would suggest it is not the right approach.