Right... uhhhh help a brother out on his literature team?

[Fuelbi]

Alright look. Today is the first meeting of the year. I got nominated for this prestegious team. We are supposed to find ways to encourage reading on students. Anyways I got given the task to ask people what motivation would they like for reading? Prizes, events, anything. Just help me out man. I gots nothing. Also preferably I would like Middle and High School students to answer this question for me

 

[:mad:]

Explain all the benefits that come from reading literature. If that doesn't work, then we know they're children.

 

[Fuelbi]

Unfortunatly if you let some kid read by himself it wont happen. He will just end up goofing off or something... actually most of the kids in my class do that unless there is some kind of reward in store.... and Im talking about people from 6-12 grade

 

[Proverbs]

Interestingly enough, there was an experiment done regarding a similar situation. They told a group of children that if they played a board game for an hour, they would each receive something like $15. They went off and played the game for the full hour and nothing more. However, another group of children were just given the game and went well beyond an hour.

Conclusion: Rewards distract from the actual benefit of the activity.

However, since I know you're not debating how well this works for getting them to read and just want ideas because you're in charge, I'll ask you to give us some more details. What's the reading for? In what environment is this? Is this required reading or extra reading? Is it a class prize or reward or is it only for each individual person?

I can't come up with a good reward if I don't know the circumstances. Pizza is a great reward for a class, but give one kid a whole pizza for reading and you're spoiling him. If you could outline the details it'd help us out a ton. Will help as much as I can.

 

[POKE40]

Correct me on my observation

-What is the problem?
Kids not reading enough

-Why are kids not reading enough?
They find it boring, they do not realize the importance of reading.

-How can you reverse this process?
Make them realize the importance of reading.
Make more interesting

-How can you make them realize?
*this is where you do some event/education program/idk*


Questions:
-What group of students is this being aimed at?

Different group of students = different planned events.

 

[Fuelbi]

Alright look:

My class is full of imature beasts who will not understand the benifits that come from reading. You know how I know that? Because we were listening an audio tape from an extremely helpful and usefull book. They were itching to sit down again and I was the only one actually listening and wanting to find out what happened next. Now the only time my class actually reads is when a prize is involved... something like a bookmark or something. What I am trying to do is to try to make them more involved in reading and actually make them want to like reading to the point where they could go home and read for pleasure and not for a book report or something. Now the kind of reading Im talking about is something like where you read and you get a prize for reading for 15 min every day in that class. Although that is once a week. At that meeting the teacher that does this says that it is working that its making them want to read but I see them after its done and they never read again. I need to get something thatll make them want to read for atleast for the prize at first but then read on their own when there is no more of that... because at that time Id be sure that they like to read...

anyways yes that is the situation....

 

[sammy p]

well, yea a raffle would work...... ummmmmm...... ill get back to you if i think of anything else my friend....
actually im in the same boat you are!
i LOVE to read!
but my classmates hate it.... its really irritating when your reading a book and you have 20 different people asking "why are you reading when you dont have to??"
and they are ACTUALLY PUZZLED when they ask this!
they are dead serious...... >.>

 

[Scott!]

I think part of what you need is some fairly well-known "classic" novel that's both fairly accessible and appealing to middle/high schoolers. If you find something good that interests them, they might be more inclined to read it, rather than something less interesting. Because honestly, if you don't enjoy reading, then you're not going to get much out of it. Forcing someone to read something they don't want to is probably going to end up being counterproductive to your goals.

 

[Omnicron's Baklava Enterprises]

Find something that will get them thinking on a certain subject. There is always some kind of book that will grab someone's thoughts and bring them right into it. Also, discuss the benefits of reading to some, not all. Reading can expand one's mind into thinking about world matters/family matters/et cetera, and can easily increase one's intelligence level (provided that they continue to read, not just read one book and quit).

Each person has a different interest of some sort, try to ask them what they're interested in now.

Spoiler

A brother? What?

 

[Mota]

You have to implant the pleasure of reading into someone at an early age. (god bless the mobile library bus)

Best you can do, is find books that appeal to each individual, ask what they're interested in.
I guess you could recommend to them books that teens could relate to.