My youngest is required by his teacher to do 20 minutes of reading every night.  It’s not a problem for him. For the most part, he likes reading.

The toughest part is remembering the record keeping. Every morning, he writes in his planner the name and author of the book he’s reading, as well as how long he spent reading it. I have to sign each entry to prove that I actually saw him read.

Over the months, our routine has boiled down to its basics:

“So,” I say, “do you have anything for me to sign?”

“What?” he answers. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah!” He gets out his planner. “What was that author’s name again?”

You get the idea. Yesterday, he changed things up on me.

“Hey Daddy,” he volunteered, handing me his planner. “Can you sign?”

“Hm.” I took the planner. He’d written “Dragon Run” for the book title, but no author.

“Cool,” I said. “But did you forget the author’s name?”

He grinned. “Look again!”

In the place where the author’s name was supposed to be, he’d drawn an arrow to where I was supposed to sign.