Once your child has finished that book, I ask them to take the short (3-10 questions) AR quiz. This gives both reader and adults (parents and teacher) feedback on their reading. If the book does not have an AR quiz number listed, chances are I can find that in the database here at school.
Regarding writing, I am NOT explicitly teaching much in the way of writing conventions ... YET. But we do remind ourselves that writers always do what they already know how to do every time they write. For example, if they already know that every sentence starts with a capital letter, then they should always write that way. Same for capitalizing names. Same for spelling words they already know how to spell. For a word they don't know, they should slow it down, sound it out, and write letters to get all the sounds in the spoken word on the page, which is the written word. Once we choose a small moment that we want to "take to publication" I will be teaching specific writing conventions lessons, both whole group and small group. I anticipate a publishing party between Thanksgiving and Winter Break to which parents will be invited.