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@Mamaof2: No, the log is just sign off that the child read 20 min per day. But we are supposed to log what was read and sign every day.
@Charm54: Thanks. Thats what we did last night. She had a good simple Mo Willems book to read and I told her after she read that book I would read her a chapter from her book. I told her if she fought reading or got too frustrated, I would leave her room and she could go to bed. She did really well reading the book and we enjoyed the second book I read to her.
I have tried to encourage her to read some of our board books/picture books to her brother and sister, even if she doesn't know the words. She's been a bit reluctant. What did help the other day was I told her I would stay with her in her room after bedtime and I would read my book and she could "read" next to me. She chose "The Day the Crayons Came Home" which we have read 100x so she knows the story but wasn't able to read herself the actual words (some of the font is hard to read too). But I think she enjoyed going through the book and to me thats still fostering that love for reading!
@looch: Yes, I'm doing an order from the library right now to see if I can get some things that would interest her. I do know she has some reading comprehension issues because as she is sounding out/reading the words slowly she will often re-read the sentence or ask me to read it back to her because she says she doesn't understand when she reads.
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@T.H.O.U.: Can you do "shared reading" (you read a page and then she reads a page) to make it feel like it's not all her? That might help with the tiredness aspect, because it gives her little breaks.
We did a timed-reading log for the library this summer and the way we scheduled it was he read to me while I cleaned up dinner/the kitchen and dealt with laundry (this is where he got in the "required" minutes), then he got a little free time and I read to him before bed. Maybe a schedule like that would work if the little siblings are in bed during dinner clean-up?
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@T.H.O.U.: It sounds like you recognize the value of both - independent reading and family reading. I'd 100% agree that she needs both, regardless of minutes
Like other pp, I'd recommend finding early reader books on her interests. Does her teacher do Scholastic orders? You might also be able to buy book lots from local mom groups?
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On the actual topic of the thread, I thought it might be a good idea if the parents of kids that have kids in elementary now comment again on their experiences.
My son has a year of K under his belt and the homework that was assigned was in a package of 4 worksheets. Each week contained a book review, a sight word practice page, a math page and a short reading comprehension page. It came home on Monday and was due on Friday. We typically aimed to complete it in the mornings, but the book review took a bit more time and required choosing a book, reading it, then answering some questions about it. I would try to get my son to use the book he took out of the school library, sometimes he would think it was a good idea. But if not, we used a Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie book because the content was easy enough to write a sentence about.
At the end of the day, what I took away from homework wasn't so much the actual content. It was more that it builds the habit of setting aside time to complete the work. Could we have skipped it, absolutely. But we didn't, because the work was easy enough that he could finish it without assistance, it built his confidence up and he got in the habit of setting the time aside.
I think this would be much more difficult to accomplish when my son is older, after not having to do it in the earlier grades, so I have revised my opinion.
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Our kindergarten experience with homework was a bit jaded because we had a first year teacher who didn't quite have everything together.
We would receive a packet on Wednesday and it would be due Friday. Typically it was a few worksheets (sometimes 5 or more). They were the same type of worksheets that they were doing in class. It just offered more practice and repetition. It was hard at first because she couldn't read the instructions so she needed assistance. But towards the end of the year, she knew what the paper was asking for and could complete mostly on her own. To be honest though we missed a lot of assignments and turned a lot in late though.
In addition to this we received some math worksheets that were optional. We usually would review before the test. They had weekly spelling tests that we had to also go over on Thursday nights/Friday mornings.
And then the reading log which honestly we skipped last year. We read to her every night and practiced reading whenever we could. I didn't have time to sign a sheet every night.
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For DD:
Kindergarten: Packet on Monday, due Friday. Daily reading and daily practice of sight wordsFor DS:
Kindergarten: Homework only on Wednesdays
1st grade: Homework given Mon-Thurs, one day at a time, XtraMath 3 times a week, reading 20-25 days per month (monthly log)
2nd Grade : way less homework - the teacher preferred to work them hard during the day (her words). She did request nightly reading and XtraMath but it was not tracked. Spelling tests each Friday.So it seems in our school homework is determined by your teacher
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Our reading log is just 20 mins a night. It can be being read to or them reading and you just initial. Also you can't submit more than 20 mins a night. You get the same check regardless of reading 20 mins or 60- I feel like that's a good compromise. However even though we read every night I am terrible at submitting the "tickets" they give you.
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My 5th grade teacher had us keep a reading log. She called it the Bookworm Club. Everyone had a "bookworm" on the wall, and every time you read 100 pages you would get another segment added to your bookworm. In order to get "credit" you had to log each book and write a summary of what it was about. The teacher made a huge deal about this like it was this amazing thing to be part of the Bookworm Club, and she played favorites with the most prolific readers in the class. I loved to read as a kid, and I found it super tedious to write up a synopsis of each book. So I only logged some of what I read and was not lauded as an accomplished reader. I found the entire exercise really lame and did not enjoy my 5th grade classroom experience much.
This teacher also emphasized penmanship A LOT. Ugh.
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My son had homework every night this past year in kindergarten. For regular work, it was nearly always reading and it only took 5-10 minutes (and I needed to be present, usually to listen to it). Occasionally we had to practice a few words for spelling tests. He also had German homework twice a week and that seemed a bit more involved, and it was only reading/writing focused. I was apprehensive going into the school year, but in the end, I didn't mind the homework. It let me keep tabs on what my son was learning and the progress he was making. It also wasn't optional, the kids were expected to do it and I think we established a good routine that we can hopefully carry forward in the coming school years.
Like other pp, I'd recommend finding early reader books on her interests. Does her teacher do Scholastic orders? You might also be able to buy book lots from local mom groups?
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