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If I have to read aloud, I skip words and miss things. I hate reading aloud.

My first grader is required to read for 30 minutes a day, and his reading log is collected weekly. The log has a section on the back to describe your favorite book this week and draw a picture of your favorite scene.

I view the daily reading requirement as worthwhile, and the reading log as a waste of time.

I hate reading aloud too. We still do SOME out-loud reading to our kids, even to the one reading Harry Potter, but I'm glad they're doing more of the reading themselves.

My DS8 has had reading logs for three years - since he started school. He also has to write about his reading weekly. If I remember correctly, there used to be a read aloud requirement where he read to us for some of the period. Now he has a read for 30 minute requirement and we have to sign off on it. I understand the point of it for kids who would not read anyway, but my DS is not one of them - he would read without the assignment (but not so much the writing part).

I have always enjoyed reading aloud to him but he prefers to read to himself now - this just changed a few months ago. We still read together at night before bed, but he reads his book while I read mine. I have actually read 5 books in the last few months.

oh the dreaded reading log...lol! Just another thing I don't miss, since we are homeschooling now. It does have a function for those who need it, but for a kid who reads so far above grade level with comprehension, etc, it's a waste of time, not to mention the agony of my poor handwriting DD trying to fit Harry Potter and the Half Blood Price into a space the size of a grain of rice, hahahaha! I hope the former teacher enjoyed looking at a month's worth of lines filled with the same title, then the next month being the next book, then...well, you get it,lol!

LOL, we had to do that this week. I told DS7 (1st grade) to write "Harry Potter #1" and make ditto marks underneath for the rest of the week.

Off topic, at what age did your kids read the later Harry Potter books?

To be fair, at back to school night our 2nd grade teacher said that the reading log was part of the district's policy of 20 minutes of reading/day, but that if we had a child you needed to nag to get their head out of their book we could skip filling it. And that is was meant as a way for kids to see if they were on track, and as a help for parents to get their kids reading by invoking teachers' authority.

We have those, too -- 15 minutes 5x weekly or 1 hour, 15 minutes for the week divided however they choose. It's like pulling teeth for DS9 to do these. He got a "U" on his report card for reading homework the first quarter because he hardly turned any of them in. He did manage to finish the book that was assigned over Christmas vacation, and passed the test on it for a reward, but he's just not into fiction and refuses to be bothered with filling out a reading log on anything else. It's one of those things where I'm torn between a "sink or swim" approach and a more hands-on approach under the assumption that it's one of his 2E "things" that takes more work.

My DS8 started the series in September when he was still 7 and finished Goblet of Fire a few weeks after his 8th birthday in November. After that one, he was afraid to go to the bathroom by himself (which is something we have dealt with off and on). He brought home Order of the Phoenix, but we made him stop. I would prefer that he wait another year to start up again and not read the final two until he is closer to 10. He was not happy about the hiatus, but he is on to Percy Jackson right now and also Lemony Snicket so successfully sidetracked.

7. He read the first three at 6, and then we made him stop and said he couldn't go on till he was at least 7. He turned up in our room at 7am on his 7th birthday, clutching Book 4 and saying that now finally he could read this. We didn't have the heart to try to slow him down again after that.

At one point DS-then-5 experienced a large increase in reading fluency, but started skipping more small words (prepositions and articles). I was worried at the time that this would be used to deny acceleration due to performance on a reading prompt, so I quickly trained him out of it. (From my phone)