How long should they be reading aloud to me?

[Singingmom]

My boys are both reading at around a 3rd/4th grade level. They would usually rather not read aloud to me anymore. They spend time each day reading on their own, mostly Donald Duck comics, sometimes books about animals. My concern is that they tend to fast forward through words that are long and unfamiliar, so they're missing out on learning those words for comprehension and practice figuring them out.

I really have no idea how learning to read really fluently progresses. Is this one of those areas where I should trust the process? They do like to read to find things out, and for fun as in comics. They're not at the point yet where they will sit down with a chapter book for fun. I do have them read to me when a word problem comes up in math or in our science book, and sometimes they come to me excited about something they found out and read it to me. And of course I read aloud to them.

In the past I've had them sit with me each day (or close to it) and read to me. Is this something I can/should be giving up or should I continue until they can figure out just about any new words?

[Jemma2]

I don't hs, but am a public school teacher and I'd say that what you've been doing is fine. I'd say keep having them read to you or each other a little every day. It doesn't have to be anything too tedious or heavy, but just enough that they continue to do it. Maybe they could read to younger cousins/friends, things like that. Even if it's just a paragraph or two.

[Beyond Blessed]

ITA. It helps with their reading speed and intonations. Our boys read to their sisters - those are generally the easier books. I read to them during school time so I'm continually modeling how fast to read, how to change my voice, etc... They read aloud to me a few times a week. They fast forward through the harder words too, but we're working on figuring out those hard words based on clues in the sentence. I found some premade chapter quizes (simple little things) on edhelper.com and we use those once a week to gauge their comprehension when they are reading to themselves - http://www.edhelper.com/books/literature_units.htm (not sure what they offer for free - I pay $20/yr for access to the *whole* site - it completely supplements all of my curriculum, not just reading).