How we homeschooled today #45

In which I get a bit Grinch-y about the Summer Reading Challenge

A lot more playing. I don’t know what prompts these intense play sessions, it’s a mystery how they appear out of nowhere and then one day suddenly stop again. As I write this an elaborate game is being laid out on the sitting room floor, involving Lego, toy soldiers, Kapla planks, the wax Christmas shapes we made yesterday, a toy farm, and toy trains.

• Jolly Phonics pupil books and Multiplication by Heart (much better than yesterday, thank goodness!). We got out all the watercolours and oil pastels and the children made some pictures, and (re)discovered that oil and water don’t mix.

  

• A trip to the library to start the Summer Reading Challenge. I’m not sure how I feel about this. My children are keen readers anyway so I’ve never felt the need to encourage them with bribes.

  Today my daughter read her first book of the challenge before we left the library, and when she went to tell the librarian he quizzed her on the book to make sure she had actually read it. She was pretty confused. As she said to me later “why would a child pretend to have read a book?”. (Also, when an adult tells you they’ve read a book do you ask them probing questions to find out if they’re lying?)

  You get a sticker for each book and you can create an account online. It seemed to me to involve a lot of Stuff around the reading, when the only thing you really need for reading is… a book. My children read because they love good books, and I wonder if offering stickers and medals as rewards sends the message that reading is something you would only do for a reward, and not for itself. But maybe for reluctant readers this stuff works?

  Also (I’m nearly done), I think reading targets like this can make reading less enjoyable because you feel you have to finish the book for it to count. Some books just don’t grab you. Or you put them down and come back to them three weeks later when they float to the top of a pile of things they were buried under. But maybe I’m just a grump who doesn’t like being told what to do.

  For all the money spent on the Summer Reading Challenge I wonder if it would be just as effective to send every school child off for the summer holidays with a really exciting book, like they do on World Book Day. The child can read it or not but at least there’d be a book in every house. We could even offer the children a choice from a limited selection a few weeks in advance so the school could order what the children actually want.

  I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this, especially if your child isn’t a keen reader and you think schemes like this are brilliant.

• More playing, more Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and more Christmas wax moulding (this time I did manage to get them to compare it to the melting/freezing points of water). Lots of playing with a friend, and together we watched the ketchup video again as well as a couple more food production videos. (I now really want a Viennetta.)

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  Thank you for reading. Please share your thoughts on summer reading schemes! And if you’re not already subscribed, sign up now and never miss a post.