Summer break arrives, and with it, the familiar quest to keep kids reading during their time off from school. Many parents optimistically enroll children in summer reading programs, hoping it helps kids foster a love for books and learning. And to sweeten the pot, libraries tout rewards like coupons and gift certificates to entice kids to hit milestones—say, a certain number of books or minutes read.
As a child who loved to read, I know the appeal personally. I recall carrying a stack of books taller than myself to the checkout desk at my local library in preparation for their summer reading program. I’d scavenge the library, meticulously looking through each section, hoping to find interesting books that were short enough to finish in time to receive a prize.
But now I wonder: What comes first, the love of reading or the enticement of a reward? Do rewards really help kids fall in love with books, or are they just icing on the cake for kids who already enjoy reading?
Let’s look at the arguments for and against summer reading rewards programs—and the story of one library that ditched them in favor of building up kids’ basic reading skills in a county where low literacy is endemic.
The Case for Summer Reading Rewards
Conventional wisdom says incentives get kids into the library, encourage them to seek out books they enjoy, and get them reading more. A whopping 97% of public libraries nationwide offer reward-based reading programs, doling out everything from stickers, stuffed animals, and temporary tattoos to free books, coupons, and tablets. As one librarian noted, kids may come for the prizes but then “leave reading for their own sake.”
Surveys of and interviews with middle schoolers who participated in summer reading programs and their parents suggest that the effectiveness of prizes is a mixed bag: a combination of what’s called “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” motivation.
Essentially, “intrinsic” motivation is when you want to do something for the sense of satisfaction you get from doing it. In this case, that would be reading for the love of reading. “Extrinsic” motivation is when you want to do something because you’ll get some kind of compensation or outside approval for doing it. Here, that would be reading to get a reward.
Popular thinking is that intrinsic motivation is more powerful, but research suggests that people aren’t driven completely by intrinsic motivation or completely by extrinsic motivation, but rather by a complex mix.
Indeed, the surveys showed that some kids who already enjoyed reading appreciated program perks as nice add-on incentives and said they read more than they might have otherwise to meet program targets. Others felt the content of the prize itself was less compelling than the sense of accomplishment they gained from doing the reading required to earn it.
Most of the parents surveyed felt that their kids read more, improved their reading skills, and gained reading confidence as a result of the summer reading rewards programs.
The Case for Ditching Reading Rewards
But not everyone is convinced that such summer rewards programs meaningfully fuel a love for reading—or even that administering them is a good use of librarians’ limited time.
Veteran children’s librarian Anne Kissinger believes libraries should focus on directly helping kids gain reading skills (which many lack, according to the numbers) instead of celebrating pages turned over the summer. In fact, she successfully lobbied for her library system to abandon summer rewards programs altogether.
For years, she says librarians at the Wauwatosa Public Library where she worked spent most summer days stamping coupons for participants in their reading rewards program. In summer 2017 alone, the library system distributed 3,000 rewards.
But at the height of this apparent success of the summer reading program, she worried that the library had evolved into a “clearinghouse” for promotional goods instead of a bastion of reading skill and interest. “They’re not reading for their own enjoyment,” she observed of kids participating. “They’re reading to fill in our logs or meet our requirements.”
With her branch located in a county where 25% of adults read at or below the lowest literacy level, peddling extrinsic motivation at that scale felt to her like shirking responsibility. Faced with the choice of sticking to the status quo or championing a deeper commitment to reading, she advocated to free librarians’ time up from stamping coupons and direct it toward better equipping parents to help their kids learn to read in the first place.
Reading specialist and Wauwatosa library patron Christine Reinders noticed the change in what the library offered physically—and culturally. It had always been a place where parents could find material to read to their children, but now it was becoming a space where parents could support their kids to read to themselves. For example, it was offering more books with simple words that kids can sound out along with more support for parents teaching their children to read.
“‘[Wauwatosa] is a really special place, because they had a library and a children’s librarian who recognized this need” to cultivate basic literacy, Reinders said. “The library was filled with all these wonderful books, but many were not accessible because kids were just learning to read. Now, we have those beginning readers to help them establish that solid foundation to become proficient readers and writers.”
Lessons for Parents From the Reading Rewards Debate
Ultimately, rewards may get some kids in the library and reading more in the short term, but parents would do well to attend to the longer term and intrinsic motivation, too. That’s the kind of motivation that stems from kids learning to read with enough skill, fluency, and understanding to enjoy it.
And libraries like Wauwatosa’s can be great partners in that pursuit when they offer resources for parents about fostering reading skills, as well as simple early reading material for kids.
After all, reading motivation is no simple black-and-white matter. Once we can read, we do it for many reasons: interest in the story, curiosity about the topic, the satisfaction of learning or getting to “the end,” the joy of personal choice, the prospect of a prize. We’re driven by a messy mix of reasons and inspirations. Parents and others hoping to encourage kids to read, or read more, may be best served by leveraging the gamut of motivations.