independent reading requirements for a 10 year old

[ProudGrandma]

What do you require your 10 year old to read for school?? I was having my daughter read from a school reading book and then reading another book like an historical fiction or a biography or something similar, but she just finished the "reading book" and I am not sure if I need to replace it with something else...or just have her continue with the bio that she is presently reading. What do you do at your home??

[Jan in SC]

I usually break down a small novel over a week. (The Phantom Tollbooth, Half Magic, The Trumpeter of Krakow). I will give him two weeks if the book is larger. (Mysterious Benedict Society)

Most of our history and science is read aloud by me, but he usually has a small book or pages from a nonfiction text to read on his own each week.

On his own, he probably reads another novel and a nonfiction book each week.

 

I will be very honest and say that my ds 9 does not read anywhere close to this amount, as he hates fiction.

[ProudGrandma]

thank you.

[Margo out of lurking]

What do you require your 10 year old to read for school?? I was having my daughter read from a school reading book and then reading another book like an historical fiction or a biography or something similar, but she just finished the "reading book" and I am not sure if I need to replace it with something else...or just have her continue with the bio that she is presently reading. What do you do at your home??

 

I was looking back at what my ds was doing two years ago when he was 10. Both of my kids were different, and I tried to schedule what worked best for them. In general, we had at least one longer read aloud going, sometimes a shorter one just for the week, and I would schedule independent reading that tied in to history. Instead of giving them a certain number of chapters to read each day, when they were that age, I would have them read for a certain amount of time. Usually, it was 30 or 60 mins., depending on what else we had going on that day. I also encouraged pleasure reading by having appealing books on hand and allowing them to read for a while in bed before turning out the light. My goal still at that point was to continue to develop both the habit of and a love for reading.

 

In contrast to many on this board, I never pushed much independent reading for school during the early elementary years. It was important for me that they learned to read (dd at age 7, around the time we pulled her from ps; ds self-taught at age 4). But we stuck with lots and lots of read alouds, and then moved into reading smaller chapter books together.

 

I continue to balance my ds's schedule. I read aloud, plus he is often assigned books for both history and/or literature. In lieu of a more formal science for now, he's also reading 30 mins. a day from a science book, but I tend to relax on that if he's reading two other books for school. He often makes time to read for pleasure too, as long as he can find something he likes.

 

After all this rambling (!! need coffee!!), my point is that it can be helpful to know what others are doing. It's most important to consider what will work best for your own dd and go with that.

 

Hmm. We need a coffee smiley.

[Heather in WI]

What do you require your 10 year old to read for school??

 

My 10 and 8 year old boys read literature for 60 minutes each day. This is in addition to history reading (about 20-30 min.) and science reading (about 15 min.). There are weeks that I have assigned reading and weeks that I let them have free pick.

[....]

There's another thread on the curriculum board right now with this question.

 

For my 9 yro, she reads:

 

1 chapter from a Sonlight Reader (historical novel) each day

about 20 minutes independent reading

 

Tues/Thurs - she reads passages from McGuffey Reader

 

She reads continuously throughout school and she reads a lot on her own (so, I don't stress reading as much)...

 

She's the one who only missed a couple of questions on the TAKS Reading - so it's working for her (but every kid is going to have different needs).

[dcjlkplus3]

My oldest is 9 and in 4th grade.

Everyday she reads:

A book for history (usually from the SOTW4 AG) - 15 minutes or 1 chapter

A book for literature (also usually from SOTW AG or WTM recs) - 15 minutes or 1 chapter

A book of her choice - 15 minutes or more - I don't count rereads - for me to mark it as done on her list I *usually* require that it be something she has NOT read before.

 

Right now she is reading The Secret Garde and really likeing it for literature and will often read more - I listed the minumums I give her (or schooltime maximum on reading for fun :tongue_smilie:- she can read as much as she wants AFTER her schoolwork is done!)

[Anita in NC]

I have my 11 year old son read an assigned book for 30 minutes during school.

 

He is also required to read a book of his choice at bedtime for at least 30 minutes.

[Dawn in OH]

My 8 1/2 and almost 10 year olds are reading 1 chapter of Farmer Boy a day plus 15-20 minutes of history and science as required reading. They both read at night for pleasure.