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?

sadly some senco are better than others . My Ds’s secondary Senco gave me rage never mind my Ds .. she left … I was delighted …. Next one was better.

Best approach I found was asking to schedule a meeting - do it now first few weeks are quiet for Senco a teacher at another school told me .. I litterally sent an agenda one meeting was planned . I treat them like business meetings , follow up emails .

Ask how anyone is supposed to read some of those super-long books in 1 week, plus report.

Ive just checked out the audio book of the Count of Monte Cristo on Amazon. It’s 52 hours long!

Does this teacher not understand dyslexia at all?
Obviously not as they say if she reads for recommended time of 45 minutes a day it's doable. How much text exactly does she think a child with dyslexia can read in that time? Does she think every child can read the same amount in 45 minutes. Bloody stupid

I would just reply saying that your daughter has dyslexia and this is not achievable so she will not be participating in this reading for pleasure torture scheme.
Copy in the Head of Year and SENCO.
Any further issues start escalating upwards to head and governors if necessary.

This is an unreasonable demand of a child who has dyslexia.

It feels like a conveyor belt of reading, with the follow ups that absolutely remove the pleasure. Reading is important and should be valued, absolutely, but this is not the way to do it.

I agree. I have always absolutely loved reading. This would have been my idea of hell, especially not having free choice over what to read. I've always had a big "to-read" pile.

Focus on getting a meeting about the hearing aids. That's important.

Tell DD to completely ignore the reading task and that you will back her up as long as she makes a good effort with the GCSE work.

Keep a diary each week of the time she spends on homework and the time you spend supporting her. Say from now till the end of the week before half term.

If she gets in trouble for the lack of reading task, email the head teacher directly, attaching the diary (as long as it shows a reasonable amount of homework - hopefully they've said the expectations for that for year 11). Explain you are concerned that she is being discriminated against for her disability, as GCSE work already takes longer for her than a typical student her age.

English HoD sounds crackers and may be gone by half term! You never know!!

I've adhd and I cannot listen ti audio books.my brain just can't take in what is going on at all. If the school won't back down then I'd just pick a book , Google the book club notes on it and then just write a report from that but I'd try my hardest to get them to except her from this though or to make some kind of accommodation

This is probably one of those things they will quietly drop, because your kid will not be the only kid who cannot complete this, not refusing to compete it but simply cannot possibly do it. And you won’t be the only parent calling the English department crackers and letting their kids not bother with a book a week nonsense.

I'm with you, OP. I had to fight similar battles with my son (now an adult) who has dyslexia and ADHD. But I am in the US where there were and are strong legal protections and mandates that apply to educating children with disabilities. Every accommodation (adjustment) we asked for was granted, and many were applied by teachers without intervention from us. Are there not similar protections in the education systems of the UK? The detention aspect is especially troubling to me: basically punishing people for having a disability.

Also, I have a degree in English literature, and I will die without having read Crime and Punishment (Russian literature, I realize). Reading for pleasure is my favorite activity, and I am a fast reader, but even I find it a challenge to read a book a week with all the other claims on my time.

@CarolinaInTheMorning sadly, although there is law, it is widely flouted to the extent that parents win over 90% of appeals to SENDIST (the SEN tribunal).

So yes SEN kids do essentially get behaviour points and detentions etc for basically having SEN.

The report is basically a homework that is due in for every monday. Not completing homework is a lunchtime detention the following day as a blanket rule for all students. If she deliberately doesnt do homework she is capable of doing, then fair enough, there should be consequences to that. But this is an unachievable homework for her, and tbh, seeing the list, it unachievable for all students. Plus, placing a consequence on something they are selling as "reading for pleasure" is outrageous in itself.

Wow, I was going to say that you must have misunderstood and surely they are supposed to write a report on the part of their book that they have read during the week!
I love reading, I am a teacher and aware of the importance of reading, but this policy is plain bonkers. Year 11s especially have their plates full already and don’t need an extra 45 minutes a day of enforced reading “for pleasure”.

Ah well, is the detention room large enough to hold most of year 11?! The problem may solve itself that way.

I think year 11 should go on strike!

The Head of English is being ableist. Barriers are not a “disheartened mindset” that can be cured by “engaging” and “encouraging” pupils. It’s no different from asking a child with asthma to run a race while having an asthma attack and then saying, oh your “barrier” to running is giving you a disheartened mindset, but we’ve chosen a lovely running course around a lake with ducks to engage pupils and all the studies show exercise is beneficial to health.

Your DD has dyslexia, ADHD and impaired hearing. These cannot be overcome by mind over matter.

Go straight to the SENCO and then Head of Year.

I think your proposal to them was far too nice and reasonable for a starting point. In fact, I’d forget you ever sent it and go in stating she is going to do none of it because any amount will endanger her GCSE work and study.

Op if you need to, I think you could also justify calling this bullying by the school. I’m not sure what threatening children with dentention for not completing unachievable taks can be can called.

Its not even just a book a week term time as the message i had from her is 8 books per half term, which is 48 in the year for students not in year 11 as the whole school is on this scheme, not just my daughters year. There are different set books per year group Ive now found out too!

This is from the information on the programme for parents ive found...

In undertaking this programme, your child will be required to read a minimum number of texts, intertextually relevant to each module in English he/she studies. This is an excellent example of not only an enhanced Literacy focus in the school, but also an exemplary opportunity to develop pupils’ Cultural Capital. The reading lists will be in each pupil’s English Team for them to easily access via their iPads. Younger year groups will be able to see the entire span of texts they’ll be asked to read until the end of Year 11.

If the SENCO and Head of Year do not immediately support you, I’d also contact the consultant that diagnosed your DD whether private or NHS and request they write a letter for you to give to the school strongly advising them that your DD should be exempted from this additional reading work.

You can also contact the local education authority and Ofsted if it comes down to it.

So would I frankly, as the task is ridiculous.

Does your daughters school have a homework policy? Just checked my daughter's and it says:-

KS4 expectations
● The equivalent to one hour a week for all subjects; reading is extra and not included in the one hour a week for English.

I know it advises that reading is extra but given they're only expected to have 1 hour per week per subject I'd say expecting 7 hours reading per week on top of that is unreasonable.

Honestly I would look up the listening times for each audiobook and add those hours next to each title to prove the point of what the school is literally asking the kids to do.

This gets better and better (sorry OP). Hopefully someone will tell the Daily Mail.

I am looking forward with some schadenfreude to the inevitable failure of this scheme.

I work for a library and this is the dumbest idea I have heard.

Those book suggestions are so heavy! A 15 year old forced to read Catch 22, The Colour Purple and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to "improve their mental health"?! LLLOOLL

A Visit from the Goon Squad is also an odd choice for 15 year olds (I enjoyed it but it would have gone over the head of 15 year old me).

My daughter is studying English at uni and this summer put together a spreadsheet to track the reading she needed to get through before the start of term. So knowing she had the data I just asked her about her page rate. Less than 50 pages an hour on average and much less for dense texts. Yes that includes jotting down brief notes now and then - but if your child is being asked to produce book reports they'd probably need to do the same. I'd definitely describe my daughter as a fast reader too.

Even with just one of the trio of ADHD, dyslexia and hearing impairment you describe this scheme sounds completely inappropriate, were she in year 10. In year 11 it is utter madness. The really academic kids may possibly benefit depending on how many subjects they are doing and their coursework and extracurricular loads ....

Most of those books are far too long even for the average teenager to finish in a week if they only devote 45 minutes a night to it.