Capital Markets and Book Reports: Incentivizing Child Literacy

Someone sent me a screenshot of a tweet.¹ No idea where it came from. The gist was that a father was paying his child one dollar for every book read. The kid thought he was gaming the system by reading so many books. Meanwhile, the dad was silently congratulating himself on discovering the optimal bribe for childhood literacy.

I shared this notion with my sibling. My siblings' children immediately started examining page counts of various books with suspiciously calculating expressions.² When I initially offered 75 cents for 150 pages, they began haggling with me like seasoned market traders. I was simultaneously impressed and alarmed.

Then I mentioned it to a friend who studies accounting and marketing, who replied that his wife would strongly disapprove of "once again trying to pay children for things they should be doing already"—but he maintained that everything should be transactional. A beautifully pragmatic accountant mindset that I wholeheartedly endorse.

So I built a tool. The Reading Incentive Calculator. It allows extended family members to contribute financially to the reading habits of children they care about.³ Pure capitalism meets literacy, and I couldn't be more pleased with the result.

The calculator has a sliding age scale with appropriate thresholds. For the data-oriented among us:

Between these thresholds, rewards increase in 25¢ increments—a stepwise function that would make any economics professor proud. The system also includes a formal submission process where children must complete a proper book report form. Because if we're teaching capitalism, we must certainly teach the importance of a proper paper trail.

You can find the tool here: Reading Incentive Calculator

If you have opinions about the morality of bribing children to read, or just want to tell me how I'm contributing to the downfall of intrinsic motivation in society, you can reach me at Lorenzo@LorenzoSwank.com or @LSwank on Twitter.