Kcab, our son, now 27, never bought into those reward programs. The problem with them is they don't take into account encyclopedias which he read voraciously at meals.
I've never been wild about forcing kids to read from a defined reading list 30 min per night. Seems to me that policies like this force kids to read things they may not like, which will kill the enjoyment of reading.
I've seen messages here saying that the schools quantify the grade levels of books, and if I remember correctly, someone said that a book at a high grade 4 level wouldn't count for grade 5 reading. All I can say about that is that if I felt like I had to read only PhD-level books in my spare time at this point, I wouldn't be reading too much.
We're fortunate that our school "gets it." They don't require the reading and also don't care what the kids read: comic books are fine, encyclopedias or similar are great. My DS8 spent part of last week reading the Usborne Book of Rocks and Minerals.
Books for assignments are one thing, but I don't understand why schools dictate what kids read in their leisure time. If someone can explain this to me, I'm all ears.
Val
