Thursday, November 4, 2010

Maybe you should re-check the math on that

This is a post I just found in my drafts folder. When I wrote it, Aaron refused to let me publish it, however, today he said it would be OK.
All he asked was that I make sure that everyone knows that this happened last year.



I love the fact that my kid's teachers require them to read a certain amount of time each day.
(I don't ever remember this being a requirement when I was their age, not that it would have been a problem, because I usually spent a great deal of time with my nose in a book.)

Our kids do read the amount of time that they are supposed to, and sometimes more. The problem that I have is having to record the amount of time they spend reading.
For some reason, this simple act of writing down the amount of minutes read each day is something that nobody in our house is able to accomplish. (myself included)

We have tried everything, charts, timers, and even just writing the numbers down on the big dry erase board in the kitchen.

It appears that we are "reading minute recording impaired." (RMRI)

Last week Aaron came to me and said that he needed to turn in a reading log for the last several weeks. He wondered how much I thought he had read during that time, as if I would remember that sort of information.
I came up with a great idea. I asked him to bring me the books that he has read in the last two weeks.
Next I timed how long it took him to read one page, and told him to times that number by the number of pages he read, and that would tell us how many minutes he had read.

He thought this was a great idea, and he went in the other room with the books and the timer.
A while later, he came and asked me to sign a slip of paper. On the paper was written;

Aaron's reading minutes
112,037

"Here mom" he said "I figured out how many minutes I read, and I need you to sign the note so I can hand it in to my teacher."

I looked at the number he had written. It looked a little high. He HAD recently been reading much more than he had previously, however, I knew there was no way that in the last 2-3 weeks, he had read for well over 100 thousand minutes.

I told him to go and divide that number by 60 to see how many actual hours that added up to.

1,867 hours

Then I told him to divide that number by 24 to see how many days that would take.

77

Which would mean that he would of had to be reading for the last 11 weeks non stop to read that many minutes.

I am very sure that he didn't read for 77 days straight, in the last two weeks.

8 comments:

Karen said...

Never mind making him read every night. You should be making him do math problems!

Cheeseboy said...

Ha ha! You don't know how many times I have actually got notes like that from kids - always in their first grade handwriting.

I ask my students to read 20 minutes per night and I generally know which ones do. But I could care less about the exact number and the only reason I keep track is for some stupid reading contest our school does.

Jessica G. said...

Grounding da Boo is kinda hard. Instead of taking away the tv or computer, I take away her books. And every time a little part of me wants to throw a temper tantrum right along with her!

LisAway said...

In Poland the comma in numbers is like a decimal in American numbers (and vice versa) so I first thought automatically that it was just under two hours. Which made it even more funny to read all his calculations.

That is hilarious.

Alison Wonderland said...

I am also RMRI but I've never thought to have the kids time themselves and do the math. And now I may not ever do so.

M said...

I also suffer from RMRI. The worst is when they not only want me to record the minutes, but the title of the book and the number of pages read. Try recreating all that!

mCat said...

I could NEVER remember to do this!
And you are a smart mom - I would have totally signed the paper without thinking about it twice.

Annette Lyon said...

And I can't STAND the charts. It's sheer bliss that the 3 oldest no longer have charts to record. My kids do read, a lot, but dang, if it isn't a pain in the behind to remember how much and when!

(77 days straight of reading sounds pretty fun to me though.)