Education

The Power of Two: A Reading Race

By Kevin Bushweller — August 27, 2008 1 min read
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In a recent entry I talked about motivating my non-reader 13-year-old to read a book titled The Power of One. I received some thoughtful suggestions from readers of this blog for how to motivate non-readers, such as sharing the reading of the book aloud occasionally or just talking about the characters in the book with him.

Nobody, however, recommended the use of competition. Yet competition is exactly what appears to be having a positive effect. His 10-year-old brother (who is a big reader) picked up a copy of the same book and started reading it. This prompted his older brother to begin reading more of the book to stay ahead in the race to finish it.

Last night, both of them were reading the book in their room and talking about the characters. It was music to my ears as I stood outside their room eavesdropping.

Stay tuned for updates on the great reading race.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Motivation Matters blog.