Comments on: Reading Breakthrough, or Victory of the Bribe

By: army mos

army mos — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:56:17 +0000

Good column , I’m going to spend more time learning about this topic

By: Ritsumei

Ritsumei — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:55:57 +0000

I’m with Dana. As adults, we often work for pay… and if there’s no pay we don’t go to work, we find someone else to work for/pay us. But we often ask our children to perform work they don’t see the value in (such as potty-training or learning to read) for little or no payoff. Bribe is such an ugly word, and most folks have such a strong reaction to it. But is it *really* a bribe? Honestly, it doesn’t sound like a bribe to me so much as a reward for a job well-done. Plus, it gives you a chance to begin teaching money-management skills.
.-= Ritsumei´s last blog ..I Heart Faces: Hands-On =-.

By: The Daily Planet » Blog Archive » Carnival of Homeschooling: House Fever Edition

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:47:19 +0000

[...] Dana who lives at Roscommon Acres is wondering if its a Reading Breakthrough, or Victory of the Bribe… [...]

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:03:02 +0000

Yes it is! And my four year old eats it up as excitedly as my son does his dimes. Every child is different, and each child places a different value on things like our time, attention, gifts, etc.
.-= Dana´s last blog ..Reading Breakthrough, or Victory of the Bribe =-.

By: Renae

Renae — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:59:53 +0000

Dana,
I’ll have to think about that some more. You could be onto something. My son enjoys playing a video game when he finishes his school. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I enjoy a bit of time blogging or reading when I finish at least some of my daily work. (As you know, our work is never completed.)

Oh, and I heard somewhere that there is a difference between learning a skill and obedience. Learning a skill might need some rewards. For instance, I’m the one who saw the benefit of potty training. My kids didn’t really care much, but when I gave them something as incentive it made all the difference.

Maybe reading is the same way. It’s hard work and kids can’t understand the full implications of opening up the world of ideas. Once they do get it, reading can become its own reward.

And isn’t praise is an extrinsic motivator also? You can’t really get away from it.
.-= Renae´s last blog ..Inexcusable =-.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:08:27 +0000

Hi Dana,

A local friend was recently admitting she is paying her TEENAGE son to read. He’s a surfer who loves reading and reads a lot, but a narrow selection. She’s paying him to read books SHE selects, to widen his repertoire!

My kids are 4.5 and 5.5 now. A year or two ago I drew ‘Reading Rockets’ for them and each time they read to me we wrote the name of the book (eg. readers from starfall.com) in the rocket. The reward for a full rocket (25 books) was a trip to a huge play cafe. Unfortunately, we often went to play cafes anyway, so it wasn’t enticing enough. Still, they read, just to see the list grow. But now they prefer ABC Reading Eggs, and the books we make together.

Vanessa
.-= Vanessa´s last blog ..Slime school! =-.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:02:31 +0000

Here is my thought for the day, Renae. I wonder sometimes if we don’t see the misuse of extrinsic motivation so much that we forget that it can be good as well.

Most of us are perfectly willing to punish a child for misbehavior, but then want them to work for praise alone. And sometimes not even that. I’ve worked with many a parent who believed that praise was only for when the child went “above and beyond.” So essentially there was punishment for wrong-doing, but rarely encouragement for right-doing.

And Shawna, I love how little things cost for young ones. My four year old is on cloud nine if I give her a penny I find on the street!
.-= Dana´s last blog ..Reading Breakthrough, or Victory of the Bribe =-.

By: Renae

Renae — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:23:15 +0000

Hmm…I wonder if M&Ms would help out around here.

My Sunshine announced that she doesn’t want to read. Ugh. She doesn’t quite get that it’s not optional. She does, however, want to write and once I can get her to focus she does quite well.

It’s interesting how our ideals don’t always work in reality, isn’t it? I never want to “bribe” my children, but I wonder if bribing in essence is trying to get someone to do something against their conscious. It seems it’s a question of motive, but the last time I tried to think through that I ended up with more questions.
.-= Renae´s last blog ..Inexcusable =-.

By: Shawna

Shawna — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:32:17 +0000

My youngest is HIGHLY motivated by cash. In fact, he has a sincere interest in wealth, itself. He is intrigued with wealthy individuals and studies them. He dreams of what he will do to acquire wealth as he matures–a lawyer was it for awhile, but he has moved on to pilot fully aware that they really do not make much money. He laments that children are not allowed to work, and thus begin the accumulation of wealth early on. So yes, if cash is what sometimes works then I also have caved… but it has led to some interesting studies of interesting individuals and interesting philosophies.

On the other hand, now that he is 10 yrs old… a dime won’t move him LOL Thus our cash incentives have dwindled, and I have had to come up with other means to motivate and move my fiercely independent and self-directed child!
.-= Shawna´s last blog ..Raising Children =-.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:12:44 +0000

He's six, soon to be seven. Quite a bright little guy, but oh can he get intense when he gets frustrated! .-= Dana´s last blog ..Reading Breakthrough, or Victory of the Bribe =-.