A Night at the Library...

We have been having some trouble getting Josh to get his 400 minutes read each month for school. That is their reading requirement in order to get their free pizza for Book-It, and it’s the minimum that the teacher wants them to read at home. He starts the month off really well, reading at least 20 minutes per day, but then he fades off and we’re left with 4 days to get 200 minutes in. He always gets it in (mainly because I say “no iPod until you have 400 minutes” but it gets done nonetheless), but I hate the fight.

John is sympathetic to him because he too “hates to read.” I questioned him about this yesterday because, unless someone has trouble reading (i.e. disability or just difficulty), then how can you hate to read? I propose that you hate what you’re reading, not the act of reading itself. He agreed that if he’s given a sports magazine or a computer article, he reads it with interest. And we’ve always been very open to what Josh reads…he can basically read whatever he wants, just as long as he’s reading and practicing (and remember, he is a fantastic reader, so he’s not having any difficulties).

So last night we headed to the library (he was super excited) and he and John went off to pick out some books, and I took Colton and Ryan to look at books (Kylie was at Rachel’s). We have a cute little branch of our county library right here in our little town, and it has a good-sized children’s area for how small it is. The little boys and I looked at some books (while Colton scarfed down Cheerios) and John and Josh got some books.

Last night Josh read for 60 minutes (only 40 more to go tonight…yippee!). And I really had a lot of fun at the library with them (Josh loves checking books out with his own library card). I told the kids that we should make this a weekly thing :)