What makes a good reading journal?

[polatia]

What would help you, or what would you find useful, as a parent, in a school/home reading journal???

A signature once a week to show that a member of staff has looked at it.

Guidance as to how to help them rather than just hearing them read, especially in higher levels.

More information from guided reading lessons to encourage what was taught in that lesson.

Yes to a signature from the teacher.

Oh and please do a lamintated covers if it is to be added too, they get wrecked so easily!

Reading targets to be put in it ie what a child is working on (reading with more expression, fluency etc).

And yes to it being checked/signed by the teacher TA on a regular basis.

Acknowledgement of messages and answers to questions that you write in it would be a start.

Anything that shows that someone other than me has read it would be nice.

One you don't have to write in, once the child has reached a certain level. Completely pointless exercise as far as I can see.

I agree with redsky. Every week if I hadn't written three times she'd read and exactly what book/pages then she'd get "non complete homework". I pointed out several times that she was harder to stop reading than to get her to read, particularly after lights out. I tried writing "read 3+ times" and things like that, and these were unacceptable.
She's going into year 5 and read books like The Hobbit last year, so she's not struggling.

In all honesty there are more important things in life. This year if they do that again, I am going to write every book she has read in the diary and on the basis this will be 20+ a week I hope to bore them to death on this.

One that the child can fill in themselves when they are old enough and save me the bother!