To get back on topic, these stories are making my hair stand on end. frown Are you all saying that your kids are not allowed to read what they want during FREE reading? This is for times when they are just supposed to be reading SOMEthing--not during reading groups or whatever?

As a counterpoint, my kids have never been disallowed any books or asked to keep to one area, and have always been allowed to bring books from home as well. This was the case at both schools DD attended. We did have to ask DS's K teacher to make sure he could check out books from the whole school library (normally they have a "K area") which she did, and he can.