You glance at the sink, at the mountain of dishes, and decide to be productive and of help. You are going to wash the dishes, you think. Just then, your mother’s voice rings out from another room, “Go wash the dishes!” All of a sudden, the idea does not seem as appealing anymore. Does this sound familiar? At this moment, you are experiencing oppositional defiance, a common occurrence when one’s intrinsic motivation is replaced by certain extrinsic motivations and causes a feeling of repellance to the task, the feeling of I-do not-want-to-do-it-because-I am told-to. What could have been something you would do for fun becomes a tiresome chore. Reading logs often result in the same consequences. They have been in schools for a long time and are used to track or enforce reading with students. They are especially common in lower level or elementary education, and many students have been found to have developed negative feelings on reading logs, which shows that reading logs can have detrimental effects on readers by lowering their intrinsic motivation to read.

In a survey conducted at Brooklawn Middle School, students were asked to divulge their opinions on reading logs. Remarks on students’ irritation and exasperation on them were incredibly common. One student comments, “I believe that reading logs are detrimental to students’ learning. This is because reading logs force students to read. Proper focused reading is only done out of interest and passion whereas forcing it makes it unenjoyable and detriments comprehension. It also deters the reader from reading out of passion rather than rudimentary numerical quotas that serve no purpose whatsoever” (Survey). Another student remarks, “I think reading logs are not beneficial because if a teacher is forcing students to read they’re less likely to want to do it, therefore making them miserable” (Survey). When surveyed, 86% of students confessed to writing down false minutes or lying on a reading log at least once in their educational career (Survey). However, students have been known to abhor homework assignments, so is this just children disliking work or is there really something to it?

In a recent study done by Sarah S. Pak, “The Effect of Mandatory Reading Logs on Children’s Motivation to Read,” second to third graders were required to complete a reading log with at least twenty minutes of reading daily. Their interest and attitude towards reading as a recreational activity were then compared and found to have significantly declined compared to their peers who were only encouraged to read (Pak 1). Pak even describes reading logs as an “Ineffective [way] of fostering a love of reading and may even lead to a decrease in children’s motivation to read” (Pak 12). In her journal of research, she also discovers that “Students with mandatory [reading] logs expressed declines in both interest and attitudes towards recreational reading in comparison to peers with voluntary logs, and attitudes toward academic reading decreased significantly from pre to post test across conditions” (Pak 1). Reading logs takes away the autonomy in reading and increases extrinsic motivation. By doing this, they hamper a student’s intrinsic motivation to read and plant the seeds of thought that reading is a chore the student is forced to do. Moreover, when interviewed, Laura Robb, an author, coach, teacher, and speaker who has over forty years of experience in education urges teachers to rethink their reasoning behind reading logs. She claims that when a schoolwide decision was made by the superintendent to increment summary-styled reading logs into their homework, one of her colleagues told her, “Students were happy to take an F to avoid the negative feelings developing toward independent reading” (Ferlazzo). She explains, “Independent reading work in book logs punishes proficient and advanced readers, for the more they read, the more work they have to complete. When reluctant and striving readers receive low grades or failures for book-log work, anxiety, anger, and frustration increase and turn students further away from reading. Furthermore, Richard Allington’s research demonstrates that students who read little to nothing experience a continual backward slide” (Ferlazzo). This perfectly encapsulates the frustration that reading logs cause and the lack of benefits that they bring. The concept of reading tied with a concern related to grades and sometimes failure is a huge repellant to reading for many students, often serving as mental barriers the students have to cross rather than encouragement towards reading. 

On the other hand, one might argue that there are benefits to reading logs, as they allow teachers to keep track of students’ reading progress and understanding. To achieve these benefits, other alternatives can be employed to avoid the overwhelmingly negative effects of reading logs. One alternative could be accountability partners, an activity that Allie Thrower practiced in her classroom, where students paired up and had discussions on the reading that they did at home the previous night with guiding questions. This, according to Andrew Boryga, helps students feel as though they are in a community of readers and induces excitement with reading (Boryga). Other options include teacher-student conferences, monthly book talks and discussions, and book reviews. Laura Robb, when interviewed by Larry Ferlazzo, explains that these substitutes “...help[s] [students] develop book love and experience joy in reading” (Ferlazzo).

A students’ natural incentives to read can be decreased by reading logs, which causes many issues in their reading career. In lieu of reading logs, there are many alternatives to focus on encouraging the reader instead of creating a tiresome workload. As an educator, it is important to foster a reading milieu for students that promotes reading as a recreational activity by substituting reading logs with engaging activities such as book discussions and conferences. If teachers continue to only utilize reading logs to track student reading, students’ motivations for reading will steadily decrease, obstructing one of the most important paths of vocabulary and knowledge intake.

Works Cited

Boryga, Andrew. “When Reading Logs Backfire, What Can Teachers Do Instead?” Edutopia, 30 September 2022, edutopia.org/article/when-reading-logs-backfire-what-can-teachers-do-instead/. Accessed 12 January 2024.

Crowe, Ashley. “Are Reading Logs More Effective Than Alternatives?” Prodigy, 4 March 2022, prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/reading-log/. Accessed 12 January 2024.

Cruz, Sarah A. “Reading Logs in Elementary Schools and Their Effects on Students and Teachers.” ScholarWorks, scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/c821gk295. Accessed 12 January 2024.

Ferlazzo, Larry. “Response: Pros & Cons of 'Reading Logs' (Opinion).” Education Week, 8 July 2019, edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-response-pros-cons-of-reading-logs/2019/07. Accessed 12 January 2024.

Pak, Sarah S. “The Effect of Mandatory Reading Logs on Children’s Motivation to Read.” Journal of Research in Education, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1098404.pdf. Accessed 12 January 2024.

“Reader Q & A The Problem with Reading Logs: Reader Q & A.” Gifted Guru, giftedguru.com/the-problem-with-reading-logs/. Accessed 12 January 2024.