I had a friend whose kids’ typing teacher only graded on improvement. So she had her kids bomb the test at the beginning of the term, then each week count the words, draw a line where it was one more word than the week before, then stop typing when they got there. All her kids passed with flying colors. That’s exactly how I would have handled the reading. My kid would be reading at a kindergarten level at the beginning…

I think we have a very disadvantaged school and the younger kids are ruining the popular books.

I think the problem of kindergarteners tearing pages out of Harry Potter.

I think you are in an area with a lot more resources. We are a title 1 school and I’m pretty sure a lot of the parents aren’t actually literate.

My school in a different state was like then when I was growing up. I actually “failed” reading because I read everything in the library and they didn’t have anything else. Reading at home didn’t count. My spouse went to several schools in multiple states and they all had rules about which books you could check out when.

I’m actually surprised this is so surprising to so many people. These smaller school districts just don’t have the resources to keep track of which kid is reading at which level.

To be very fair to our staff, I have one child who is way, way above their expected reading level and the staff occasionally helps them “sneak” books. They are doing the best they can, and I’m in a situation to supplement reading at home.

But in all the areas I’ve lived in, there have been massive hoops to get through with reading. These are our current struggles, but some have been kind of insurmountable. I had one library that kept charging us for ruining books we had never even laid eyes on. Like we wouldn’t go for a month and get a fine for ruining a kids book when we didn’t have kids. Mostly I just wanted to highlight that sometimes just getting something to read can be really hard.

Let’s assume I really live in the middle of nowhere haha. The “big” libraries near me are super uptight about it.

Obviously in the middle of nowhere haha

I think a lot of my problem is that we live in the middle of nowhere. There’s no goodwill haha.

To be honest, I don’t really think all the teachers support the check out restrictions but I think there are some families that have abused it in the past. The principal recently “snuck” a book to one of my kids that is 3 “grades” above them. I’m definitely not trying to trash the school, I definitely think they care and are doing the best they can in a hard situation.

Honestly, I’ve only lived in one town I didn’t have to pay for inter-library loans. It was in the next county over haha. I don’t think there are consistent rules around a lot of this stuff, even in the same state. One library system we were in was so bad they tried to charge us for books we had never checked out ever. Multiple times. I think it can be a really mixed bag sometimes.

It’s surprisingly common just because they don’t think kindergartners can actually read books like Percy Jackson on their own. I just wish there was a little more wiggle room.

I’ve been kind of keeping an eye out and all the big libraries that have done something similar have had restrictions on the deal that weren’t initially reported. I don’t remember all of them, but an example would be the New York Library had a headline about it that anyone could check out books, but when you read the fine print it was only certain banned books on their list. Lots of stuff like that.

Last time I tried to inter-library loan something it was twice the cost of buying it used. Yeah I’m a pro at finding cheap books, but then you have to do something with them when you are done.

I would really like more info on this if anyone has it.

I didn’t get past the paywall, so pretty much just a comment on reading in general.

This is how it works at my house. The school library will only let kids check out books from “their” grade level. None of my kids read at the level expected for their grade, they either fall above or below it. Our public library opens after they leave for school and closes before they get home. If you can get all the stars to align, all the extra-curriculars cancel everything, and you can make it during the 2 hours they are open on Saturday, they don’t have anything on the page long list of books you are looking for. If you download the Libby app, the list of books for kids is pretty slim in our library system and the wait times are long.

So then you are stuck buying the books. And there’s only so much time, money, and space in your house.