(I Really Hope that My) Guys Read

Last summer I had some success with reading incentives for my kids, despite the group think on the Internet that says you shouldn't reward kids for reading.  (Those articles written, of course, by people whose kids already love to read voluntarily).  As for me, I'd rather reward them for reading than anything else they are likely to spend time on this summer.  So I set out this summer to find an incentive program that would be easy to manage and fun to do for boys.

I didn't find any canned programs, or apps, for that matter, that would help.  But I did find some good sites with resources encouraging kids, and boys in particular, to read.  One is http://guysread.com, and I even went as far as to buy a T-Shirt from them.  Another is http://readkiddoread.com/, which is an endeavor associated with book writing machine James Patterson, who also has several books series aimed at middle school students and teens.

I decided to roll my own incentive program, complete with 20 levels (from Barney to Avengers) and two Tiers, based on ability.  Tier 1 is for my younger boys, and Tier 2 for my teenager.  There is a financial incentive associated with each level that escalates the further you go.  So you may only get $1 for "clearing" the Barney Level, but $6 for clearing the Wolfpack level.  So if you are cranking out books come late July, you will have earned some good spending money - and hopefully read some great books!  We are also planning to incorporate sleepover privileges and some gaming privileges with clearing certain levels.  There are some other kids in the 'hood who are also going to join in.  Results will be tracked on another good reading resource site http://www.goodreads.com/. 

Anyone is welcome to borrow and modify the table below, which I am providing with the hopes that other parents will get their guys (and girls) to read, if they are not already.

		Pages of words (cumulative)
	Incentive Level	Tier 1	Tier 2
1	Barney Level	75	150
2	Bob the Builder Level	150	300
3	Lego Star Wars Level	225	450
4	Panther Level	300	600
5	Falcon Level	375	750
6	Wolfpack Level	450	900
7	Eric Staal Level	525	1050
8	Philip Rivers Level	600	1200
9	John Cena Level	675	1350
10	George Washington Level	750	1500
11	Ronald Reagan Level	825	1650
12	Columbus Level	900	1800
13	Thomas Edison Level	975	1950
14	Mozart Level	1050	2100
15	Copernicus Level	1125	2250
16	Steve Jobs Level	1200	2400
17	Albert Einstein Level	1275	2550
18	Neil Peart Level	1350	2700
19	Isaac Newton Level	1425	2850
20	Avengers Level	1500	3000