Filling in Reading Record Book

[NewSchoolNewName]

If your child reads an extra reading book at home - not a reading book provided by school - would you make a note of it in the school’s Reading Record Book?

Yes always - I think it shows a range of reading plus sometimes was the only way to get any kind of reading done!

Teacher here - yes please!

Yep

Yes. Would also put any comments about their reading and understanding of that book.

I always note anything read at home. The school expect reading to be completed every night and school books can become repetitive.

alwaystimeforcakeandtea
What year??

Our school is bonkers on reading levels. Year 3, for example, is not "allowed" above level 11 ORT.....
So we just read the books that come home, and then do our own thing. I've given up on them.... they do get sarcastic comments occasionally like "Baloonz remembered this book from last month and could tell me the story before we started. Read fluently with understanding".

I don't fill them out. I told the teacher at the start of the year 'we read every night, I'm not filling out a book, don't bother sending school readers home, we've got our own books'.

I'm a teacher. It's just busy work for parents. We know who is and isn't reading at home.

I haven't been filling it out, I don't always fill it in every time we read the same book either.

Yes.

DD5 fills it out herself.

She can write so I make her do it.

Im lazy

Depending on how the day's going I might write down if they've read something that's not their school reading book - I usually don't do more than a smiley face or a tick in the day's box though (school are fine with this). Easier now they're on longer books where you can just write "read pages 1-7" and that's the ruddy box filled in!

There are parents who write absolute essays though detailing everything read at home that day - so "Tarquin read the nutritional information section on the box of Coco Pops at breakfast this morning and then pages 6-97 of the Karma Sutra, and read Kipper's Shoelaces to Grandma at bedtime"

Hexagonal, I’ve just snorted with laughter on my train at the above. I’ll have to try that & see if anyone notices.

So what do teachers do with the information parents record in the book, how do they use it? I have been recording religiously for the past year and have not seen anything come of it i.e. changed school book level or something like that. I wonder what purpose it serves for the teacher.

I was a parent volunteer at DS’s Primary School. I would help change books in the morning and listen to children read. If there was nothing written in the reading record I was told not to change their book. When I listened to a child read, I would note what book/pages they read. There were a number of children whose reading record book would just have my notes in, nothing from parents, for a few weeks in a row, and, unfortunately, you could tell which of those children hadn’t been listened to at home. Luckily, not many.
Obviously I had nothing to do with the reading levels that the children were on, I just had lists of books I could choose for each child.

Only when the child is struggling to make progress, or it's hard to persuade them to read with you at all. We would also write down any particularly stellar moments, like if they got a book and started reading it independently or they tried extra hard. That's not so much for the teacher's info, more so the child sees you value it.

Mostly we scribbled something in the reading record once a week before it had to be handed in. But in my mind the audience is the child, more than the teacher, so keeping it positive and celebrating effort is key.

Thanks

I’ll put a short note in about extra books. No essays!

This might be a stupid question, but when pp say they can tell which children haven’t been reading at home regardless of the reading record - how can you tell?

I always do. Mostly because my youngest 2 (reception and year 1) are both below average at reading so if I don't record absolutely everything I end up getting notes in their book bags saying that they are behind because they aren't reading enough at home.

"When pp say they can tell which children haven’t been reading at home regardless of the reading record - how can you tell"

This is why I record it if they are struggling. We had one child who tried really hard but it just didn't click, she was on blue books for about a year. I find it really hard to believe that the teacher could just tell that the work was being put in at home. Our other child we worked a lot less hard on and were told several times that they could see he had the support at home - nope not particularly, it just came easily to him.

There was one little girl I used to listen to. She would rush up to me every time I came in to listen to readers with her book begging me to listen to her. Even though I had a list of children I always tried to fit her in. She would always be at the same place in the book where we had been the last time we had read together. Her parents had recently acrimoniously split up, and she told me her parents no longer had time to read with her, although sometimes an older sibling did. There were quite a few children in the family, and following the split they couldn’t have a SAHP any more. She loved reading, and due to circumstances out of everyone’s control, she couldn’t read as much at home as she used to be able to.

Luckily things settled down in her home life after a while, but in that turbulent time in her life, it was nice that she could have 10 minutes when she could escape into reading.

My children's new headteacher brought in a thing in September where if children don't read at home (anything at all) they have to go to reading club in playtime. It does my head in because it's another job to fit in the hour between coming home and starting bedtime or the half hour between being ready for school and leaving the house.

My youngest hates reading and it's always a battle, which goes against everything I believe in both as a parent and as a teacher.

They are meant to get rewards for reading so many books but my youngest for some reason has been missed out - 80+ books and still no school-bought book of the child's choice and still no school branded T-shirt. My youngest has noticed that others, who have read fewer books, have been rewarded and feels it's unfair and hates reading even bloody more!

You can usually tell when the reading folder is full of letters and drawings that have been in there for weeks, and when we've read a longer book and used the reading diary as a bookmark to keep place in it - and it's not been moved in the time between hearing readers at school.

Our school are pretty good at following up notes in the reading diaries though - I've popped in a few times (mine are confident readers so quite often volunteers just hear them and the class teacher hasn't checked in on their book levels for a while) a request if they can just listen to a couple of pages as they seem to be hitting a point the level could use double-checking and they've always been very happy to follow up on that (but I'm known as pretty honest in terms of my assessment of where the kids are at). At the moment I'm putting a fair bit of information in as we're working together between home and school to crack a few pacing issues with my own child's reading - but generally I'm a "read pages 5-9" and a smiley face if they've done amazingly merchant myself.

I'm now realising I write waaaaaay too much in the reading record! Will the teacher be rolling her eyes?

TA in year 1-yes please!
It separates the non readers from the readers. I don't want to ask a child to read more if they are, but just reading varied texts as directed by patents. All reading is worth noting; shopping lists, road signs, recipes etc.

Bonjour Im a TA and I only pass the Reading Record to the teacher if it's out of my remit. Some parents read every single night and write a small paragraph. Others once a week. My only thoughts are how lucky that child is to be listened to every night. But, I am also aware that it is hard to make time if you work-teachers understand this more than most. I change books daily and all I really need to know is: Is the book finished?Were there any difficulties?

Winter Some of our Year 2s are on Level 11 ORT. It can be difficult to ensure children are comprehending what they read and not just decoding. I had a fluent reader last week at ORT Level 6 who couldn't even hazard a guess at what 'glow' meant even though he read it convincingly.

Oh, I don't do this. DS reads all the time at home. He's not that interested in the books he brings home from school, but I do listen to him read them regularly.