Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Just - arrrrgh, re differentiation

We started out by fudging the data, too. Then we met with the teacher and said that, since the hard part is getting DD to stop reading, the reading log was a waste of our time and we weren't going to do it anymore. The teacher was quick to agree, and that was the end of that.

Beautiful. I'm copying you.

Yes, that's pretty much what we did with both kids, Dude. No pushback from any teacher so far.

My son is not a big reader (despite reading very early) so I have to push him to read. The reading log this summer has made him into a mathematician though, because all he cared about is how to allocate the books over the remaining days before school starts. This changes everyday because he puts off reading his allocated number of books. He is much better at math now than when summer started. Unintended consequence?

Precisely. We learned very early on that cyberschools were ALL about this sort of data. Preferably in web forms that accepted rather restricted character strings. LOL.

We used this approach with PE in our asthmatic child, too-- an average of 120 minutes a week does NOT necessarily mean that on those weeks when activity is restricted, that you can't "borrow" some minutes from another week when you go running 90 minutes daily. KWIM?


DD's average reading time daily at 6-10 yo was 4h+ if I'd allow it, so I never had any qualms about entering a value that "met" the benchmark that they needed to show kids meeting. Those forms weren't about kids like mine. {shrug}

Oh, how I love this...

We have not had serious encounters with reading logs yet. If we do, I'm copying your approach.

We did the "fudged" reading log too. I couldn't stand DD feeling guilty for having one blank spot on her log that was surrounded by multiple days of multiple hours of reading.

In middle school (here MS is 6, 7, 8th grades) they switched from the log to a points system, where after reading a book you took a quiz on a computer and earned points. That seemed to work much better as it was an indicator of overall reading amount, rather than how many nights in a row you have free time to read. (Slight brag - deciding to put the pedal to the metal in 8th grade - DD ended up with more points than the combined scores of the 2nd and 3rd place students.)

Best of luck,
--S.F.

Starting in second grade it became all about the AR points and no more reading logs. And there was a bit of competition to it. My son had hit high AR points for not only his grade but also the entire school when he was in second grade. He skipped third grade and had high points again in fourth grade. I had been saying all along reading shouldn't be a competition and they dropped posting the high points in fifth grade because why bother....he was going to win again. And they went out and got all sorts of prizes last year for the high ar point kids for each grade but instead of giving him the best prize (a tablet) they put all the names in a hat and pulled for the prizes....even though no one was close to his points. But this isn't what education should do. Readers already read and enjoy reading. Prizes and competition don't help them get better....and poor readers I feel are just discouraged because they can't beat a kid like mine.

Reading logs=the way to kill the love of reading in my uber-reader...they have become the bane of our existence. DD10 needs absolutely no encouragement to read and needs to be told to STOP reading in order to complete other homework. But she detests having to record what or how much she reads. DD's oppositional streak ran headlong into the newly instituted reading-log requirement of a long-term sub last year...DD just flat out refused to record her time and resisted our suggestions to "just do it." (Sigh)

So guess what this year's new teacher started out the year asking the students to do? It's going to be a long year...

That is my sentiment exactly, Cookie. Why incentivize something that is innately and intrinsically its OWN reward-- it doesn't make sense.

I mean, I'm all for people who don't enjoy it to personalize their own goals for learning the habit-- much the way one might say "I'm treating myself to _____" when I reach my goal of going to the gym 100 days in a row, or something.

That's great. But making it a competition really doesn't help most of the people who NEED the incentive.