Our fifth grader is great about independently reading his Robinson Curriculum (RC) core book list. I have a lot of peace of mind about the content and literary quality and he enjoys the reading. At this age he is reading for one hour a day. When we have finished Bible, Math and Writing he sets a timer for one hour and cuddles up with his story. I make sure they are printed off and bound (I prefer letter sized pages, comb bound. I just found I had less hiccups with printing and margins with this method.) and that I give him a fresh Book Notes and Summary Guide (linked below) with each new book. I am all about that low prep life!
I wanted to have him turn something into me at the end of each book to trigger recording of the books and to keep moving his skills forward so I went through several resources trying to find a good fit for both our needs. Some things were too simple, too cutesy, too redundant, too complex and so on so I did what I always do, I created my own resource. The Book Notes and Summary Guide is printed and given to him with his new book and he does the rest. You can grab the one I made from Teachers Pay Teachers or have your student do something similar. I just found that it took more effort to get him to write up things on his own than if I just handed him this independent work packet and so far it's worked like a charm.
He gets a fresh book and takes the chapter notes page from the packet and writes the book title in and folds the sheet in half lengthwise. It now functions as a bookmark he can take notes on in the areas provided. I like to print this page two sided so he can flip it over and write on the other side as well. He simply does his hour of reading and then summarizes the chapters he's read. No more than 10 minutes of chapter summary writing. It's not supposed to be very detailed. He loves to draw pictures in his chapter notes and I think he doesn't mind taking notes when he gets to add his own illustrations.
The rest of the pages I staple together and place in the back of the book. Since everything is letter sized it all fits together perfectly without corners getting wrinkled or papers falling out and getting eaten by the dog.
When he's done reading a book he uses his usual reading hour to use his summary guide packet that's been waiting for him in the back of his book. He rereads his chapter notes. He uses them to fill in the book information sheet and then he uses that to write a summary paragraph. I like to have him submit it to me for spelling and grammar review and if there are too many mistakes I have him rewrite it. I do not make this a major writing affair. We do writing, as a subject, separate from this.
A note about feedback or grading for my fifth grader: I choose to focus on one or two skills at a time. I found that in the beginning it was disheartening to us both because EVERYTHING seemed to be wrong. Wrong spelling, missing information, wrong punctuation or no punctuation, sentence fragments and you get the idea. He's a kid learning to write and think. It was much more constructive if I focused on one of these items and then when that skill was consistently being employed I'd add on another. First I started with handwriting. I had to be able to read it. Then I added on punctuation, then capitalization, spelling corrections, then sentence structure, all the parts of the summary and we have seen him improving. He turns everything into me at the end and I give five points for each complete component; chapter summaries, book information sheet and summary paragraph for 15 points total.
We enjoy an oral presentation at the end and this can also work as a time to practice listening skills for his younger siblings. That's my system. It's simple and effective and I like the independence and accountability it provides. I think I can build on this maybe next year and get into full book reports but for now this is the level of energy we both are happy to expend. I hope if you are wanting some structure to your RC students independent reading that this can be a help to you!
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