The reading is supposed to be by the child. We did reading aloud all summer long and it greatly improved her reading, but she's still not capable of 30 minutes at a stretch. I suspect by the time she is, she will have achieved "lift-off" and be reading for pleasure, at which point I will refuse to make it be homework, and will tell the teacher so.
I don't really have any problem with the *kinds* of work they're assigning, but I do have a problem with how *much*. In a way I appreciate that they are trying to get kids up to speed on writing so that they can go on to do writing for writing's sake. The older grades write stories and essays, and articles for the school newsletter, which I think is awesome, and they want to get the little ones writing as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the teacher wants a reading log for the reading aloud, so there's no weaseling out of that one.
