How much time does your child spend reading?
I'm interested in how much 'time' parents with grade school children have their children read each day. We homeschool and we are using curriculum that has 'readers' for several subjects. How much reading do you do not counting any 'readers'? What types of books are you using? My son is 7 y/o and doing 2nd grade work for the most part.
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- Both of my boys (7 and 12) read for about an hour each (school) day - for school. They also do "free" reading at other times during the day. Most of the books they read for school would be considered classics - both at age-level and abridged (for the younger one). We use a lot of historical fiction for history, biographies and other non-fiction for science.
- It varies. We don't assign reading work in our house, so it is based on the child's desire to read. Some weeks one or two of the kids will read for five or six hours a day, every day. Then they'll go a week or two without reading at all. My younger daughter reads an hour or so each day, every day. Overall, each of our children have mastered skills at least one or two grade levels over their age expectation, but we don't keep track of level work, just on their overall learning.
- I've homeschooled for 3 years and of course his reading time has gone up each year. In the beginning I insisted on a half hour a day. But since he has gotten older, and is also a fast reader, he gets to read when he feels like it. Once in a while, if I notice he hasn't been reading much, I'll remind him or get him some new books. Try Hank The Cowdog series with your son, mine loves them.
- As long as they'd like. They read in the car, at home, in waiting rooms, just where ever. There is no limit on reading time; they read a lot, and we often read a loud in the evenings; all of us still enjoy it. If we do get a book on CD -- rarely -- we use it to cuddle up, have some snacks and listen to the story. We make a suggested reading list for the year; they pick and choose the order, but those are the books that have to be read because they pertain to their subjects like historical fiction books, biographies, and science readers. They also have their favorites that they read, as well as many classics, poems, and other fiction books. Last year my son homed in on Viking mythology, and must have read about 15 books on the subject, it was sparked by one little book; Beowulf. All of us but one are avid readers, the one who is not is given a start date, and a finish date so she can stay on track, she is a slow reader, and the book really has to catch her interest for her to pick it up by herself. We will ask her to spend an hour or two a day on reading a book.
- When my kids were that age I couldn't find enough "Magic Treehouse" for them. I regret having abridged classics for them. They won't read the unabridged now, and truly the abridged ones take a great story and turn it into pap. Even when they read on their own I still read to them at a higher level to expose them to good literature and push the vocabulary boundaries. The Little House on the Prairie books a great. Now they are older and read sporadically only if they really like the book, but my eldest still loves me to read to her out of 19th century classics. I should think about half an hour to 2 hours a day is sufficient; I wouldn't make it an issue but I would certainly encourage it.
- The students that I teach have self selected reading for 25 minutes at school and are supposed to read for 20 minutes each night.
- We still do read alouds in our family, and my children read all the time. All read well beyond grade level, and the difficulty there is finding age appropriate but still challenging books! We probably read 2-3 hours a day, minimally. We don't watch much TV, if any, and computer time is also limited, which is why we have so much time to read!! Strongly advise books on tape in the car (i.e. Charlotte's Web) and reading aloud more advanced books to your children. I've often found starting a book as a read aloud and stopping at an exciting place often spurs the child to pick up the book and read it on their own just to see "what happens next".
- My 9yo son is assigned at least 30 minutes of free reading every day, he generally chooses between science-based books, historical fiction, and biographies. We do read-aloud for about an hour per day (more at times), and he loves listening to audio books. He's dyslexic, so I keep the reading down to a manageable time for him. It'll go up about 15 minutes per year until he's reading for 1.5-2 hours per day, plus his coursework. He's also extremely auditory and can comprehend works that are 4-6 years above his reading/decoding level, so I let him listen to audiobooks to his heart's delight. There are times he'll spend 5-6 hours per day (after our schoolday is done) with an audiobook on an 8th-10th grade reading level and proceed to tell me all about it - the plot, characters, themes, everything. I would say at 2nd grade, let them read as much as they are comfortable with, and turn the rest into read-alouds. Some kids this age are natural-born readers, while others are still really struggling. There is still such a huge gap between abilities at the 6-8yo level, the main thing is to keep reading and learning interesting, challenging, and fun. If your child is not at the point where they're ready to do it on their own yet, it's just fine to still read with them. Hope that helps!
- I don't "have" my daughter (9yo) read--she enjoys reading and goes in spurts where she'll read for maybe only half an hour a day for a bit, then do 2-3 hours a day. This is aside from any reading she may do for school work. And it's whatever interests her (within reason, of course): comics, novels, joke books, etc. My 6yo ds is still working on those phonics skills, but he probably spends a good hour or more each day just looking through books. His preference is for anything science-based that has pictures or comics (Garfield is a huge favourite).
- every night before bed, I'll read a couple of chapters of our latest Magic Treehouse books (our first foray into chapter books) then he goes to sleep with a nightlight and reads by that as long as he likes until he falls asleep. usuallly twenty minutes or so, sometimes an hour and a half, occasionally only five minutes when he's had a long day. Credit for the genius of the "you can stay up as long as you're reading" rule goes to the fantastic Spider Robinson, the science fiction author/punster.
- That's cool, but when they get older anything is good reading if it excites them. In Junior High I read eveyrthing by IAn Flemming. I also read ALL the juvinile Sci Fi books and read Scavengers in Space a dozen times. I can recite that book for you almost word for word.
- I don't force reading with my child. I just populated her bedroom library with books that had subjects that she would enjoy. Because I did this, she is now asking for chapter books to read.
- My daughter is in 10th grade now, and I have her reading 2 hours a day for her book reports. She has five book reports that must be done each year. When my children were younger I would make them read one hour a day a few times a week.
- My daughter who is almost seven and doing second grade work has to read whatever is on the reading schedule for that day, usually amounting to about 15 minutes per day. Also, we read to her other books for about 1 hour per day per school day. But as for free time reading, the sky is the limit. While she HAS to read the one thing I give her to read, she gets to pick the rest of it (within limits--I sometimes will not let her read inappropriate books or books that are way to hard such as 10th grade level). With a reluctant reader, I would read a paragraph, then have him read a praragraph, etc. If they are already doing several readers a day, I would not require any more reading, but would let them choose to do more if they want to.
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