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A five-minute weekly reading check-in for parents
One short routine for the end of each homeschool week: what to look at, the three questions to ask, and how it changes the next week's lessons.
· 2 min read · Literacy Trail team
In short
Once a week, look at three things for each child: which lessons were taught, which skills are still marked as developing or needing support, and how many days had no lesson. Then decide one thing to change next week. It takes five minutes if the daily record exists and an evening if it does not.
Daily records are for teaching. The weekly look is for steering. Most homeschool parents do the first and skip the second, because by Friday afternoon the last thing anyone wants is a review meeting with themselves. Here is a version that fits in the time it takes the kettle to boil.
The three questions
- What did we actually teach this week? Count the lessons, not the days you meant to.
- What is still shaky? Anything rated Developing for more than three sessions, or Needs support twice, gets named out loud.
- How many days had nothing? Gaps explain more regressions than any teaching decision.
One change, not five
The point of the check-in is a single decision for next week: lead every session with the shaky sound, move a child back a lesson, shorten the sessions, or add a fourth day. One change is something you will do. Five is a list you will lose.
With more than one child
Do the three questions per child, separately, even if they are taught together. The child who is quietly behind is the one the combined view hides. It is also the moment to notice when two children have drifted far enough apart that teaching them together no longer works.
What to keep from it
A one-line note per child per week: what you changed and why. Twelve of those lines is a term summary, and forty of them is the year-end record most families need.
In Literacy Trail
The attention list applies the three questions for you: no session in two weeks, Needs support on consecutive lessons, a review overdue. The student page shows the week's sessions and the open review items, and a note with the category set to observation is the one-line record.
Keep the record while you teach
Set up your students, pick the lesson each one is on, and the ratings you tap after each lesson do the rest.