Reading journal - losing the will...

[Ragusa]

DS is a young 5, in reception. He seems quite able to me and seems to be doing well with phonics. We have a reading journal we're sipposed to fill in and I'm going to be very honest here and say I find this pointless, joy-sucking and irritating. AIBU to just not fill it in?!We do read by the way, and do practice writing etc. Not necessarily every day as DS is sometimes too tired, but regularly.

We have 3 books per week. I only write read and sign it. The teacher wants to know it has been read before she changes it; that's all. I only make comments if I really have anything to say like: it was too dufficult; to easy; maybe she is ready for another level. I rarely make comments

What are you writing? You can't be making comments everyday.

I teach y2 and am more than happy for parents to just sign the record as an acknowledgment that the book has been home and has been looked at.

Of course, if any issues arose parents are welcome to comment about them if they need to.

Paper, of course it's not the signing the book that makes a child read but it's building good habits and a reminder to read with them. I sign it every time I read with DS2, it takes minutes. I truly don't understand the problem!

We hear readers every day. You should try trying to write 24 meaningful comments every other day! (Ta does the other days)
I'm very happy to just have the record back initialled, equally happy to have a comment (some of which have been very helpful)

I think it's enormously judgmental to label this 'lazy parenting'. Surely every parent has their areas of excellence and their areas of being crap. It doesn't help to write off parents who don't see this one little record keeping task as a major priority.

Paperm0ver, I am put off by the title of the link, so I haven't read it. But, what's wrong with parents' help to read ? Unless you have 1-1 teacher, some of work have to be done at home, I believe. School teach children phonics, and parents help children to learn to read, retain what they learned at school. Same for things like times tables. They learn it at school, but if the child retain it or not really depends on how much they practice at home.

And I can see why TAs and teachers have to spend extra time with children who can't get it at home.

Seriously, I'm losing the will with this thread!

We (teachers and TAs) just need you to tell us where your Dc has read to and if the book needs to be changed.

We have 30 book bags to get through in half an hour (usually assembly time) to make sure that all your dcs have a book or 2 to read at home.

If there is no note I will assume the book* has not been read, and it therefore won't get changed.*

It is purely to make our job a little bit easier and quicker, so we have more time to spend on your children's' learning.
Thankyou to all who take the 10 seconds a day to help.

The rest of you, can you really not see how it works?

To all the pps who think they shouldn't have to listen to their Dc read because it's the schools job - you make me very sad.
Every class in every school has a couple of kids who never read at home. Yes, eventually they will get it, but it will be a long difficult road. Why would you not want to make it easier for your child by helping them and supporting them at home?

Because learning to read needs 1:1 support and no school has the resources to read 1:1 with every child every day, it just can't happen.

Supporting their reading is the single most important thing you can do for their education.

I just can't get my head around why any loving parent wouldn't do it.

Oops, bold went a bit crazy there, sorry!
I didn't intend to shout that much!

The rest of you, can you really not see how it works?

Well, if that's how it works in your school, that's reasonable. It's not how it works at ours though.

I have to sign it to say he's read a book he doesn't even bring to school. It's not a school book and therefore doesn't need changing. The school book never gets read, so it doesn't get changed either. They don't need me to tell them what page he is on in his home reading book, because it's not their job to change it. It's mine (and I've just ordered the other 8 or so in the series on Amazon)

Secondly I put more effort into it before he could read. Now he can, I don't think it's a priority, not as much as say doing his times tables or maths with him. we've 'cracked' reading in a sense. It's fair enough when they are smaller and need to master the basics though, to expect them to be heard at home - all else being equal.

In some households though, all else is not equal. There is very little time with the DCs as it is, for some of us, and when I try and read to the older ones, the little one will start hitting them or trying to take the book, or trying to climb on my head or something. I can't manage all of them at once, so unless he is asleep, we get very little chance to do anything together without distraction or disruption.

That doesn't make me an unloving parent. It makes me a parent under significant pressure, without much help, and with three children to think of, not just the one in your class

Oh and the reason I DO sign his book most mornings is that there was a thing where the teachers were punishing those children who didn't read every day. It was a list being read out to the other children, and it was called 'name and shame'.

I made a complaint and it was stopped, but I realised that there is a competition between the children/classes to see who reads the most, and I didn't know about that prior to the other thing happening, and so now I do it in order that ds gets credit for reading as much as he does. Which is a lot.

I hate, hate, hate competitive learning stuff. It makes no difference to him at all - he would read anyway. it just makes the ones who don't, or can't, or whose parents haven't the time or the skills, feel even worse about themselves. IMO of course

Hennifer, I am sure your dc's teachers know you are great parent. Don't take the comments personally. If you are the kind of people PPs are talking about, you wouldn't feel anything.(You taking offence from comments from pp makes me think that you are involved, caring parent.)
The way I think is different from you, but I know you are a great parent, doing best for your children.

That is very kind of you Irvine

I hope people can see that I do care about them.

Hennifer- my comments were directed at the posters saying they didn't bother with the reading record because they couldn't see the point in it, and at those who don't see reading with their dc as their responsibility.

You sound like a lovely caring parent.

I know it can be tricky when you have little ones too - I've been there.
I know it can't work for everyone but I found it easiest reading at the table straight before /after tea while little ones were distracted by finger food. As they progress and need less intervention it gets easier - my dds would usually take turns to read to me while I was making dinner.
Or in the car, or while littlies were in the bath.

Also, I have never seen competition around reading in any of the schools I've worked in.
I can see how that would feel like you had to do it for the wrong reasons.

As for the name and shame list that just sounds horrendous.

Completely counter productive

Thanks, yes I think we can safely agree that name and shame was a bad idea NQT

I appreciate your comments.

HesMy, surely all the people saying they don't see the point are coming from a system that doesn't work like yours. The point is obvious in your system. When we had a log that worked like that we ticked it or whatever. Now the system is child changes book when you poke them consistently for days on end then eventually send them back in at pick-up they want.

The thing is, even if we fill ours in the books do not get changed unless the chikd does it. He's five. All he thinks about is superheroes/ what's for dinner/rolling around in the mud. Changing his reading book is not happening :D

Paperm0ver , yes I do listen to my ds while cooking dinner. I normally check if he is reading with proper punctuation, intonation and expression.
I also ask him questions about stories, or if he know the meaning of some words, etc. But other times, I sit down with him and listen to him read without any distraction, check if he is reading words correctly without skipping any. We have done it since reception, so it's our routine now. And he writes diary straight after, and I sign it.

I've been reading the thread for the whole time, and was all very unsure about the various merits, possibly mostly because DD is in reception, reading fine, utterly bored by the school scheme books and just whistles through them, but since all the next load of levels are going to be just as boring it's not really anything to change. Five minutes a week and me writing "ready easily...", or a comment on the plot, or just found it boring - which is what DD requested I put.

However with the last book, the teacher - who rarely comments although the TA always adds something - wrote a long surprisingly waffley comment about specific conditions for moving up to the next level. Perhaps DD had asked, 'cos I don't see book levels, or the home books as relevant - not because I don't see reading as important, but simply that I don't see the system of levels and ploughing through things as an achievement, and DD is either the same personality or has learnt it through me anyway. We read lots of stuff for pleasure or knowledge and the school book system is rarely going to provide that.

However, today, DD didn't get her book changed, because I didn't write in the book. I didn't write in the book simply because there was no room, the teachers comment had simply filled the page next to where I could write, and I'm not the sort to start a new page simply to write - "easy, was a bit questioning about bag in ragbag." DD told the TA she'd read the book, so we just got no book, which is fine, we've plenty of stuff to read. But it was quite surprising to see the amount of officialdom put around the journal, rather than DD just swapping out the book.

Even in YR though I'm sure without the teacher naming and shaming, there's a lot of notice by the kids what happens, DD notices the levels of other kids, told me as we walked around the classroom where to check the list of names of kids who were getting extra help with various topics (writing / numbers etc.). There's competition there for sure, so I'll help DD out by putting something in the journal, even though I don't see the point in our case, DD will be a fluent reader before long, I can see how for others it wouldn't be.