My oldest hates to read. For years he struggled, and he was finally diagnosed with weaknesses in his eye muscles. After undergoing vision therapy, reading is much easier for him, and his grades skyrocketed. However, he is still convinced he is a bad reader.
When school let out in May, the summer reading project was announced. He has to read two books and turn in a written summary, a timeline of events, and definitions of 10-15 words he found unfamiliar. I’ve begged and ordered him to read over the summer. I find if I sit next to him, he will read, but he will not pick up the book on his own.
He finally finished the first book report. Now we’re working on getting the second one done – with only a week left before school starts. So we sat down and planned how many pages a day he has to read. I talked to him about breaking his habit of leaving things to the last minute. I know it’s hypocritical of me since I am the Queen of Procrastination, but I want him to be better than I am. It’s too stressful when procrastination is the path I choose.
Recently I read an article about how paying students to read improved their reading comprehension test scores. James and I have talked about it, and Jumpshot likes the idea. However, he’s not happy with the dollar value we offered. So here’s the question, how much is completing a book worth?
His school participates in the Accelerated Reading program where each book is assigned a point value and students are given a point goal to reach by the end of the quarter. Should we pay by point or by book? He earns $10/week for mowing the lawn. Should the pay for reading be higher or lower? His point goals thus far have translated into about four books a quarter.
Let me know what you think or if you have any other ideas we could try.
paying per point seems like the perfect option. It will reward him not only for completing a book, but also for tackling more challenging texts.
Good luck!
That said, you still have to decide how much and on what basis. I remember the Accelerated Reader program from when I was in school, and if it’s still the same, the points per book were based on a number of factors – such as words per page, words per sentence, vocabulary level, etc. – to determine the book’s difficulty. The higher the reading level the book (i.e. The more difficult a read), the more points it was worth. Therefore,
Since reading is something he hates to do, the motivation for him to do it is going to have to be stronger. He’s a physical guy – loves sports – so mowing the lawn probably doesn’t seem too bad to him. Even though mowing is the more physically demanding act, it’s reading that is actually more challenging for him. Sure, it’s more traditional for kids to be paid to mow the lawn than to read, but reading is a skill he will need throughout his entire life, no matter what field he enters, so essentially we ALL get paid to read. Because of it’s necessity as a skill, and his innate aversion to it, I say that in this case the reading should get higher pay.
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I would pay him either by every page or every chapter. You can pay him $0.10 per page or $1.00 per chapter. If you pay him per book then he will probably pick books not challenging or books with only a few pages. Good luck! I am going through the same thing with Chris right now too