Independent Reading/Read-Alouds

[toddandleah]

Hey all,

 

I'm trying to plan for next year. How many books do you usually require your kiddos to read independently? I'm planning for 1st and 3rd grades.

 

Also, about how many books do you plan for read-alouds?

 

Thanks,

Leah

[Narrow Gate Academy]

For 3rd grade last year she read a chapter (20-30 pages) per day independently. We didn't do read alouds.

 

For my first grader this year, we'll read 4-5 picture books related to history and science and have 1 or 2 longer read alouds going (reading a chapter or two each day) as well as daily Bible reading. I'm hoping we'll get far enough along in phonics for some independent reading by January. HTH

[toddandleah]

bump

[Earth Angel_79]

For my DS1 (1st grader reading at a late 1st grade, early 2nd grade level) I am going to require a selection from his easy reader Bible in the morning (so those are about 2-3 pages long) and then later another reading selection that would be about the same in length.

Last year we got in 8-9 read alouds (a couple we dropped, one out of disinterest and another because it was too scary; we also read a great deal of Burgess Bird Book for Children, but didn't finish it yet). I'm hoping to get in about 11-13 read alouds this year, however, I am mixing in a far greater amount of picture books to keep 4.5 and 2.5 yr old siblings interested too. We are doing Native Americans for history all year with N. American Habitats and Animals for science, so the picture books we read during the day will be on those subjects.

[NanceXToo]

For first grade, we'd do just read alouds. I wouldn't require any independent reading (though if he wanted to do so and was able to I'd certainly encourage him to do it for fun whenever he wanted to).

 

For third grade, I let my daughter pick any books she wanted at our regular library trips and read them for fun, but if I noticed that she wasn't doing much reading (particularly in the summer) I'd encourage her to read at least a chapter at some point in the day or before bed, or I'd give her silly "reading challenges" (I read about them in a magazine) where I'd tell her to spend X number of minutes reading aloud to a pet, or reading under a table, or moving up one step to the top of our staircase and then back down for each page read, and she'd get some sort of minor "prize" for completing the "challenge."

 

For fourth grade (which was our first full year officially homeschooling), we did Oak Meadow, which assigned a specific book every three weeks- but we always read those assigned books aloud together, reading to each other. She continued to read independently, books of her own choosing, just for fun, and I'd continue to encourage that. I expect fifth grade will be about the same.

[Ellie]

I never required my dc to read.

 

I read aloud to them from a good book, one chapter a day after lunch, from books I wanted to be sure they would experience. Otherwise, we went to the library weekly; they were allowed to check out as many books as they wanted--or none at all--but all books had to be returned the following week whether they'd been read or not, which was the only way I could avoid overdue fines.:glare:

 

Anyway, no required reading. It worked for us.:)