I have a confession, I bribed my kid.

We are a reading family. We read a lot. We have several bookcases on the second floor of our home, we have a couple on the first floor and then down in the basement we have a giant one (+ 2 full-height smaller ones in the basement bathroom). Like I said, we read a lot. Although I’ve been told that one of the indicators of academic success is the number of books in the home, not how often you actually read them. Sweet. We’re set on both counts.

(Me in the messy basement with the giant bookcase).

Our youngest has not been as interested in reading or even in listening to stories as our oldest. She’s turning a corner. Just this summer (age 5.5) she started asking about more sight words and recognizing the sounds letters make. But she told me she *couldn’t* read — she didn’t know how. Over the summer her writing has made it clear that she’s learning by a different path than her big sister. She’s learning through sounding out, something Erin never did. She wrote a note this spring when she was in trouble that said, I’m sorry for throwing the cup.  I wish I had a picture of it to share.

So I reassured her when she said she couldn’t read that she would learn in kindergarten. Yesterday was Day 1 of kindergarten and she brought home a scholastic book order. She mentioned that I consider buying the Rainbow Magic Fairies box set for the big sister of a kindergarten friend. We are familiar with Rainbow Magic. They are poorly written, but like crack cocaine for little emergent readers who really want to read chapter books. So…. I told Leah Lu I’d buy her the whole box set when she learns to read, after she successfully reads one of the books.

Amazon’s image. Don’t truly look inside. It’s drivel. But hey, if it gets this reluctant reader on board I’ll move over a few books on the bookshelf. Just don’t ask me to read those damn books out loud. No can do.

She’ll get there. And then we can move on to better literature.