The Importance of Reading

The Reading, circa 1890-95
I have often tried to stress to Kate the importance of knowing how to read. She can read, but she doesn't enjoy it like Ellie does. I usually have to tell her to read. The school we homeschool through has a program where the kids can earn books and magazine subscriptions for reading books. The thought of getting a magazine in the mail every month with her own name on it excites Kate. She read 4 books this morning (only 96 left to go to get a magazine subsscription!) Hooray Kate!
I am as excited about this program as the kids are. We subscribe to a number of kids educational magazines and they are all up for renewal right now - and expensive. I decided that I won't renew any of them and I will let the kids work towards them instead. I've probably just saved myself $100 or more :)

Today, Kate got a very good lesson on the importance of reading. She very politely asked me if she could get a snack for herself and Lexie. I agreed that she could get the two of them a bowl of applesauce. She is fully capable of this task (although sometimes rather messy). When I came upstairs 1/2 hour later, I noticed that neither of them had eaten any of their applesauce (although there was stll a mess!) I asked Kate why they didn't eat it and I found out that she was being lazy and instead of reading all of the names on the spice rack while she was looking for yummy cinnamon, she just picked up the one that resembled cinammon and proceeded to dump tons of it into both bowls of applesauce. I am sure that the two girls were very surprised when they took the first bite of their cumin-flavored applesauce. I can honestly say that I have never tried that one before! I'm sure that next time she will read the labels carefully :)