Children need to read for the love of the story. Not because it's listed on the lexile chart in a certain range.
When she is done with her current "Cat Who" book, I think I will suggest to her that it might be okay if she re-reads Harry Potter. She wanted to, but with all this Lexil stuff and required reading and not re-reading, I discouraged her. I think I will go ahead and let her. Maybe she will be willing to read it to DD6. She has tried to read it herself and just doesn't have enough phonics to sound out the harder words.
I agree with Dude. We simply stopped doing the reading log, as it didn't make sense for us and was just a hassle. We occasionally mention the sorts of things DS has read recently, but we're not going to keep track of it. I doubt that the school in any district can condition a student's grades on the parent's performance of tracking activities anyway (i.e. parents can't be given homework).
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The reading log is part of her Vocabular Packet that is sent home every Monday. She fills it out on her own. I sign it. With this part of the assignment not done, even if it does not have a signature, DD tells me that they receive points off. I believe this as I HAVE seen 5 points taken off a paper becuase DD did not have her name on it. DD never forgets stuff like that. So, I though it annoying to not let is slide that once...but I guess she'll never forget her name again. Maybe. If she cares enough about grades.
[quote=Cricket2]* buying her a Nook and letting her read on that (she likes technology and can download samples of books and decide if she wants to continue reading them or not once she's had a chance to preview them)
* letting her read magazines and shorter things like collections of short stories (Edgar Allen Poe, for instance, is likely to be fairly high on a lexile range, but also has a lot of shorter stuff in case she loses interest quickly)
* like you, not following with an iron fist whether the reading log is a 100% accurate representation of what dd is reading -- putting it back in her court rather than making it a chore
I will do all of these. It will take time to afford a Nook. I would be closer to buying one if DD6 hadn't read 40 BOOKS for a Read to Feed fund raiser at school...I said I would give her a buck a chapter book. She had two weeks to read. I would have NEVER imagined she could read 40 of those stupid Rainbow Magic Books in two weeks! I tested her on them too because I didn't believe her! No one has turned her off to reading yet! Obviously those books must be below her challenge level if she can read them so fast...right? I guess this is one case it is good to be under challenged. This is teaching me that being underchallenged is not always bad.
DD6 does not like to stumble on a word. It messes up the flow of the story. So, she only reads books she can read easily. I have learned through all this that is okay! However, I am $40 poorer.
Thank you for all your wonderful advice. She will be so happy to read Harry Potter again without being accused of being lazy or underachieve (I think I might even be to blame sometimes) and I will buy her a Nook for her 10th bday...her 6 year old sis will be sooooo jealous!
