How many literature books a year for around fourth grade?

[PhotoGal]

We are just finishing up our second year of homeschooling. This year (third grade), ds read 10 assigned books. I think last year it was 9. (About one book per month). I just read that it might be better to not let one book stretch out so long (taking a month per book), but rather a book should be finished within a week or two. What do you think? If he read a book every two weeks, he could read more titles, though obviously we would need to devote more time during the school day for reading. He reads above grade level, but he does not read chapter books outside of school - just lots and lots of comics (like Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Pokémon...). So I am tempted to up his required books, but I also don't want to rush things too much. My other thought was that I could assign a book for 2-3 weeks per month and use the last week for poetry or short stories. What has worked for your fourth-ish grader?

[Julie Smith]

My son is going into fourth grade in september. We school year round so I can tell you what we are doing right now.

 

We are reading books together. Recently we started to read the lightning thief taking turns at paragraphs. I'm glad we started this since I noticed some problems with his reading. Just clipping words or going to fast and getting some words mixed up. It wasn't often or much, but enough that I'm glad we are fixing the problem now.

 

The audio recording of the book says its 10 or 11 hours. I think the book will take us 2 weeks to finish. One advantage of this shared reading is he can read books above his reading level since I'm right there to help him when he trips up.

 

Then we will go onto a different book. He is also reading stuff of his own choosing. I personally don't care about the level of what he is reading as long as its about 20 minutes a day. He must also always have a physically light book on the go. (he is currently reading Thomas the tank engine stories that he use to love as a boy but hasn't heard in about 4 years. It is physically a huge book so no way would we do it as a grab and go book to read when bored during errands)

 

I think your question really depends on the kid, the book and the amount of discussion about the book.

 

(on iPad, sorry for mistakes and sorry if I'm not clear)

[In the Rain]

I have a dd going into 4th, and one who is older. I generally only assign about 1 book a month for school purposes. Both kids also read voraciously on their own though. They frequently retell portions of the books they read independently, and I ask general questions. We also usually have a read aloud and/or audiobook going. We discuss those at length.

 

If one of my dc was only reading comics in their free time, I would set some goals for reading other genres too. I would try not to make it an assignment to be discussed, but I would be heavily encouraging them to branch out. I used a Bingo chart for that purpose one summer.

[Farrar]

We're sticking with one a month. My kids aren't super fast readers and I feel it's important they have time to read their own choices too.

[mschickie]

We do at least 20 reading books a year for school (3rd and 4th grades) and then I also make dd read 1/2 hr a day from a book of her choice. I only occasionally let comic books or magazines count towards reading time. I believe the best way to make life long learners is to get them reading when they are young.

[fourisenough]

My older girls weren't terribly fast or eager readers at that age (they were still starting many books, but finishing few). One book per month was about all they could do without it taking forever. My DD3 reads about 3 assigned books per month and at least that many books for pleasure. I think it depends heavily upon the child. I do like a previous poster's suggestion to still require some reading aloud (him to you) at that age; you are able to catch mistakes and help them with difficult vocabulary. I think it has helped my girls' fluency immensely. Good luck!

[Laura Corin]

My boys read an assigned book a week. They are both fast readers.

 

ETA: that would be something like My Side of the Mountain.

 

L

[Farrar]

I realized this also depends a lot on what is meant by a book... When I said a book a month, I meant a chapter book for literature. Right now we're doing My Side of the Mountain, for example. Additionally, we read at least one or two longish nonfiction picture books every week to go along with science and history. But no way could they do much more than that and still have time for pleasure reading.

[Tonia]

We have a timed reading session every day. My dd reads for 45 min a day (was 30 but I'd like to get up to 1 hour by the end of 4th grade) each school day. I don't pick out all the books for her, we fill a basket with good literature on her level and she picks what she wants to read. So, for 3rd grade, reading 30 minutes per day during the week she read 18 books (that includes summer - we have scheduled reading time all year). Some books were fairly short, others were longer.

 

For assigned reading (history lessons) I do something similar. We're using Story of the World for history so I just order the suggested books in the Activity Guide that fit her age range and keep them in a basket. dd picks out a book a day (generally picture books, if it's a chapter book she reads a chapter or two per day). Any other time during the day or bedtime she can choose what she wants (generally Calvin and Hobbes, Geronimo Stilton, Tintin, How to Train your Dragon, etc.)

 

editing to add: this is for a kid who isn't an "I like to read for fun" kid. She would much rather be playing than reading a book. So I try to give her options - letting her choose her own books seems to help a bit.

[SilverMoon]

My DS who just finished fourth grade had a particular shelf of books that I hand selected. He could read whatever he wanted from that shelf for a particular amount of time every school day. I didn't keep track of how many he went through, but I'd guess a 2-3 per month average. There was no formal analysis, writing assignments or anything like that; we just talked about what he read.

 

eta: That doesn't include daily read aloud time, or the materials DS read for history and science. Our daily read aloud stack usually consists of a book of poetry, something tied to history, something tied to science, one fairy tale or short story volume, and one book that's just high quality literature.