At our neighborhood elementary school, students in every grade have to read aloud from their textbook every night. They fill in a chart like this one. First, the date and the title of the piece is filled in. A parent has to mark their performance as “good”, “so-so”, “needs more work” (that’s a rough translation). Little Brother’s performance was marked “good”. The parent signs it. The next day, the teacher checks the card and puts a sticker next to the parent’s signature. Little Brother has a reading card for this year, too. There more things to check in his performance. In first grade, the card had more details to fill in, too.

Students have time for free reading before class starts in the morning. As they are waiting for lunch to be served, they have free reading time. They can take a book from home or go to the school library to check one out.