School refuses to make DS1 chnage his book for home

[jmspbro]

DS1 is coming to the end of yr2 and is a free reader, if that is what you call it when they are no longer on the reading scheme. Marvelous you might say, but regardless, he needs to be kept reading and challenged.

He is lazy at changing his school book to read at home, and when we ask the school to ensure he changes his book, they refuse saying it is up to him to change it.

Should I be annoyed with the school?

No you should be annoyed with your child.

What are you doing to encourage his reading at home? Taking him to the library? Do you have a selection of books at home?

Not everything should be up to the teachers. You have to put some effort in as well.

I don't think you can be annoyed at the school; I agree with sashh that your ire should be directed at your child. Presumably you have also told him to change his book and he isn't bothering.

As year 2 is now ending there is little point in getting worked up over this now. It's the end of the year and children are genuinely tired. This may be the reason why he is no longer interested in changing his book. He may also be enjoying making some choices - even if you do not agree with them - as he now can decide what/if to read since he is off the reading schemes. It could simply be there is nothing there he fancies reading.
If you have a local library near you, build weekly visits in during the holidays; help him learn how to choose (maybe this is also hard for him and he worries about getting a 'difficult' book etc.). Read with him and to him; just because he is a free reader doesn't mean he doesn't need or want you to do that. Do you show him that you enjoy reading too, by sitting down with a book for ten minutes? Build regular 'book breaks' into your day/weekend where you both sit down for 10 minutes and read. What you want to do is build within him, within your family, a culture of valuing reading - any book, even if it means 'going down' to more easy books. Talk about what you are reading, make predictions about what will happen next, talk about favourite characters, draw pictures of favourite scenes from books. You want to build this in him so that at the start of year 3 he is more enthusiastic about reading. Then, if you still have the same problem 4 weeks or so after going back to school discuss the concerns with the teacher.

Hi jmspbro:

I think adoptmama has made some great points - and I also suspect that if he's chosing from class library his options may be limited (he may have read everything in the box for him - but Y2/ Y3 children can want to read the same thing over and over if they enjoy it - we had a first encyclopaedia for 6 months in Y3).

The other problem we found is that first stage after becoming a free reader book choice is wide open but at the same time not clear. Your DS (like my DDs) may have loved the simplicity of short stories and clear plots and find chapter books (if he's moved on to that) a bit boring (no pictures or maybe not his thing as a genre). I know at our school we do not have a lot of non-fiction books and the boys are endlessly complaining about this. They want to know how things work, about dinosaurs, about the plantets, etc...

Chosing a book requires skills and this may be something you help your DS work on over the summer: What does he like in a book? Does he prefer illustrations? Does he have favourite authors? Does he prefer certain types of books: adventure, non-fiction, etc?

Some solutions:

Go along to your local library and see what summer reading schemes they have lined up. It may be possible for you to fire him up a bit about reading if he sees it as a competition with prizes. It may take a bit of juggling with your schedule - but this sounds a critical stage in his reading development so worth the effort.

Keep up to date on what books are out there (there's so many more now):

The Book Trust is great for this: www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/children/ - if you scroll down below the horizontally arranged photo icons - you'll see a list on the lift - under books for children there's book finder. Click this and then click 5-8 & you may also want to peek at 9 - 12. 8 is a really tricky age because 9-12 books may be too old and 5 - 8 books may be too young.

The guardian's how to build a classic children's library has a fantastic list of books to consider: www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/mar/24/childrens.library - this is the link to the 8 - 11 recommendations with some advice on reading from age 8.

Tricks of the trade (developed over the years for DD1 (y5) and DD2 (y3)):

Go to book stores or newsagents (especially if you have a few minutes to kill) - let them browse & get excited about books and then discuss whether you've seen this book in the school library or local library. Often DDs are very persuaded by a cool cover illustration, which may not be the same at school/ library. But they will check out the book once they know about it.

Look into other forms of reading: Magazines and comics are fantastic. DD1 loves Pokemon and in an airport when we were delayed I cracked and bought her a comic novel Pokemon adventure. She was overjoyed - and has read it over and over again. But you pick up great vocabulary - she came home from her first day in Y4 and said "Mum, you won't believe it, I'm sitting with my arch nemesis at starter table" - Pokemon - all is forgiven.

If there's a book to the movie and they're old enough to see the movie - they're old enough to read the book (or have it read to them, which we've done for The Hobbit).

Finally - and because I think this is hugely important - does your DS see men reading (father, uncles, grandfathers, etc...) in his life. They have a role to play here too - and may also have good ideas about great books.

HTH

DD is also in Y2 and adores reading - but even she is not bothering to change her reading book at the moment! I think it's end-of-term-itis.

I make sure she has plenty of books at home, or tbh she just reads bits out of recipe books or stories online - anything to keep her reading.

There is the summer holiday reading challenge coming up - this has always got my DC motivated to read over the summer.

I agree with others that you can't expect the school to remind your DC and even if they will now, they certainly won't in Y3, so it's a good habit to get into. Though as I said above, I personally wouldn't stress too much now, but reinforce again at start of Y3.

my daughter has started taking her own book in for reading until the end of term, she has bored of all the ones left in the box, she has read all the ones at the level she is and gone back and done some from the lower level boxes and so is just taking in her own book (ahem - rainbow fairies but she is only in reception and the teacher is just happy she is enjoying reading). I wouldn't worry about it, in September see what the set up is then, they may have new books in his new class, he may have changed what he likes to read, the teacher may say he can take in whatever he wants if she doesn't like the school ones etc.

It seems that once they are in Yr2 the children are expected to take a lot more responsibility for themselves and their work so this is probably why they are saying it is up to him to do it.

It's probably the end of term.

I would give him a break, but maybe see if you can ignite his reading passion in other ways- ie get some books out of the library that he is interested in. DS, end of Y1 but also "free reader" had a poetry book from school for the past two weeks. This was ideal for him for end of term, meant he could just read a couple of poems a night, and it's something different from the norm. I have relaxed and asked him on Monday if he wanted to keep this for now but he took it back to get it replaced by.......another Mr Majeika (nothing wrong with Mr Majeika just he has brought loads home from school). He is really enjoying Horrible Histories and Horrible Science www.horrible-science.co.uk/bookcollections#15 at the moment, so spends most of the time reading these and they are not from school.

my daughter loves poetry books - she was very put out when she exhausted all the ones she could find at school, luckily we have a book of over 300 for her at home.

Yes, it was very refreshing . It was quite an old fashioned book that was falling to pieces but had some good poems in. It's lovely to hear DS reading them out loud. Some are very simple tongue twisters and then there are some by John Keats, T.S. Eliot etc etc.

No, be annoyed with the child!

However, if he's free reading, he can read anything aimed at his age surely. Books from library, off amazon, from anywhere really. It doesn't have to be school books.

I thought the same when she came home with the first one. So many more opportunities for expression too and lots of opportunity to look up new words and learn about the different styles of poetry.

I'd be annoyed with the child and the school.

Waste of energy being annoyed really though isn't it? If you are bothered I would tell child to change book and if that didn't work I would ask teacher with child in earshot to remind them to change book. But actually I wouldn't bother as we have loads of books and getting another one from school isn't that important. I guess if you don't have many books then it is more important but I prefer to keep books a joyful thing than a "must do".

It could be like our school - the child puts their reading record and book in the "change" basket so the TA can look and see if things are progressing.. it is up to the kids to do this, it is a responsibility they try to get them to take before moving up to juniors where they have to do the whole book logging and changing process themselves.

Thank you everyone for your comments. OK, I'll just chill about the book change at school. For the record, it is not just end of year, but most of the year this has been happening.

Yes, we do go to the library, and DS1 and DS2 will be taking part in the reading challenge over the summer holiday.

At home, DS1 reads & likes Mr Gum, David Walliams and Tony Robinson.

When you say change the book do you mean the book or the set/level?

Maybe he just hasn't found the books he likes at school yet? Worth talking to him so he does better on this next year. Oh yes the reading challenge, DS will be doing that too, he really liked it last year.