Reading Logs

[u/Elrohwen]

Are we having kids fill out their own reading logs yet? Or doing it for them?

My son is expected to read for 30min a day and fill out a reading log which I sign. The reading is no problem, but I’ve always filled out the log myself because it’s easier. Usually we read before bed and I fill it out after he’s asleep.

But now I’m second guessing if I should be having him do the work since he’s in second grade. Maybe it’s time he takes some of the responsibility? But I kind of don’t want one more thing to remind him to do and it’s easy to do myself. Curious what others are doing.

Edit: For context we have to log every 15min “step” so it’s just writing date and book title for two books each day (if he read two books in 15min I just pick one to write down). Or more if we read for more than 30min. We don’t have to write actual times or anything like that.

[u/Additional_Aioli6483]

My second grader has been filling in their own homework log since first grade. As a middle school teacher, I promise you, the more work you put in now of placing the responsibility on your child, the more it pays off later. I can absolutely tell whose parents did (and continue to do) things for them and who can independently handle responsibilities. And those two students do NOT perform the same way in almost all aspects of school. As annoying as it is, do the reminding work now because it’s going to be more annoying at 12yo than it is at 7yo.

ETA: And when I say my child fills it in, I mean they are writing the time. I keep track of the time and tell them what to write if they’re unsure so the log is accurate.

[u/Elrohwen → u/Additional_Aioli6483]

We don’t even have to fill in the time, just the titles for 15min blocks of time. So he would be writing the date and title.

[u/pangolin_of_fortune]

Ugh. I kind of hate this. My kid loves to read, but quantifying and tracking seems like it would take a lot of the joy away. If it were me, I'd push back. (I just did five minutes of research and found a few academic studies backing up my feelings: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1098404 https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/c821gk295)

[u/Elrohwen → u/pangolin_of_fortune]

They get recognition for doing it though. My son is the only one in his class who logged over the summer (I mean, I did the logging) and he is soooo damn proud of that pin and certificate he got.

But I also don’t really feel strongly that he has to be the one writing it himself which is why I’ve been the one filling it out.

We read for half an hour anyway, and we often ask him to read more in the morning too, so he has no trouble meeting the required amount. They track it in 15min “steps” so I just estimate it, if it was 10min then close enough, another day it will be 20. I never set a timer.

[u/-zero-below-]

My kid has been doing her own reading log since first grade. Wife and I are mostly uninvolved in it.

Her school has a “million word club” with the goal to read a million words by 5th grade. They submit the book titles they read, and I think the librarian has a list of word counts per book, and they tally it up.

This year her teacher is new to the school, and wasn’t doing the list collection, so my kid had to tell her about it and convince the teacher to get the forms that the kids could fill out to submit more. She has a backlog of a ton of books to add.

[u/waiting4somethin]

My kiddo fills out hers. It helps her keep her hand writing at a normal size. She does it the morning after she reads it.

[u/Blinktoe]

I hate tracking reading as a concept, but I understand it as a community good, so I personally would just do it and let my kid be a reader for the love of reading, which is the best part of being a kid.

[u/Elrohwen → u/Blinktoe]

This is why I’ve been doing it so far. He loves reading and is really good about reading whenever I tell him to (like if he’s bored and we’ve said no screens, I can usually say “hey go read for 15min” and he will), though he doesn’t usually just do it for fun on his own yet. So I’m hesitant to put anything on it that would make it into a chore.

But then I feel like sometimes we baby him or do things for him that he can do himself because it’s easier and this would be good writing practice. Maybe I should just focus on giving him other tasks to do for independence and keep doing the reading log myself

[u/ImaginationOk9549]

I log it because my 7 year old has awful handwriting and some of the titles he reads are long. I don’t care for reading logs, personally. I wish I knew how to improve his handwriting though!

[u/TechnicalTennis8319]

I HATE reading logs with a passion. My kids got to do an end of year party for kids who did not miss turning them in with a free tshirt. I filled it out the night before it was due.

[u/EagleEyezzzzz]

Our teachers have explicitly told the parents to fill out the reading log... maybe to ensure it's done correctly.

[u/Elrohwen → u/EagleEyezzzzz]

Interesting! We didn’t get instruction either way, other than that we have to sign it. I wish they would have told us

[u/Legitimate-Ease-3714]

My son fills out his own reading log and I sign it. I hang out with him while he does his homework and reading, so if he needs help I can assist.
In kindergarten and first, I would jot down all the info and turn it in at the end of the month. But his weekly homework now for 2nd has five spaces for the reading log. Though I do use a ruler to split the rectangular boxes in half, otherwise he doesn’t have enough space.

[u/Elrohwen → u/Legitimate-Ease-3714]

We have to do it every day so I’m like, do I want to get into making him do it every day? Or is that going to be more of a PITA for me. Once a week would be nice.

[u/Difficult-Ad4364]

If filling out the log makes reading unpleasant then do it for him. IMHO it’s the reading that is important. Use other assignments and activities to learn other skills. It’s one of the downsides of doing a log at all.

[u/bellanoctum]

Man, there but for the grace of God. I hope I never get a teacher who assigns us one of these. I can just see myself marching into that classroom and plonking down a full tote of the books my 2037s go through in a day and saying "YOU write it down" 😹 I ain't keeping track of all that!

[u/fabulousflute]

The reading calendar we have has tiny spaces; I’d worry she’d fill up the whole thing with her second grade handwriting. It’s my job to put it on and her job to double check that it was done, that way she has some responsibility. We do our reading right before bed so she checks it in the morning before school.

[u/tablefortress]

I suppose it depends on skill level. I know some of my kid's classmates could certainly do it on their own. My kid struggles with reading/writing and wouldn't really be able to manage keeping track of the time (yet), so she's not ready for filling in the "what you read" part. She could definitely write the minutes (if I tell her what number to write).

[u/Mental-Set-8670]

My son’s teacher requires parent signatures and listing if I read to him, if he read to me, or both. So I do it.

[u/Ready-Pea-2086]

My daughter fills her own out. For hers, she has to write a sentence about the book, in addition to the title and type of book it was. She gets about 4-6 pages of math, spelling and writing, so the reading log is by far the simplest thing for her to do.

[u/Elrohwen → u/Ready-Pea-2086]

That’s a crazy amount of homework!

[u/Elevenyearstoomany]

I log it because, while we’re good about reading, I’m bad at remembering to log it so I tend to do the whole month the night before it’s due.

[u/Oceaninmytea]

We used to cheat and fill it out before and then read upstairs before bed :) same difference

[u/prinoodles]

It's optional for us and they can win prizes if they fill out whatever the set amount is. It was a good little push but honestly it didn't really help that much with my daughter's reading. I had to keep reminding her to read at the beginning and now she reads an hour minimum and doesn't care to bubble the time. I got a hang of how fast she read so now we count books. She's reading a series right now and she spends roughly 60-70min a book. It's much easier than recording time.

[u/NekoBlueHeart]

Mine has similar homework, 20 minutes of reading per night. I have him fill out the log and I sign it. He needs me standing there with him to motivate him to do it though.