Title Bouts : Children in Literacy Program Earn Cash for Reading Books, and the Experiment Pays Off

Reading isn’t a chore for kids in Bellflower. It’s a job.

That’s because youngsters at two elementary schools have been paid to read books in an unusual literacy program organized by a local hospital and a group of volunteers.

Children with the poorest reading habits and lowest literacy levels were “hired” for the three-month project. Their salary was set at $1.50 for each volume they read.

When the program’s books were closed Wednesday, 12-year-old Jarrod Manning was the top wage earner: The 64 titles he read netted him paychecks totaling $96.

“It took days and days to do it. I read books whenever I could, at recess, at lunch, at home,” the sixth-grader explained. “But it was worth it.”

Educators at Bellflower’s Washington and Woodruff elementary schools feel the same way. They say the kids’ self-esteem is improving. So are their grades.

“Jarrod came to us last year as a non-reader,” said Jeanie Cash, principal at Woodruff. “He had never been taught how to read. He was reading at the first-grade level. Now, he’s at sixth-grade level.”

Cash said she was skeptical about the we’ll-pay-you-to-read idea when administrators of the local Kaiser Permanente hospital first proposed it. The hospital provided $15,000 for books and the children’s paychecks. It also fielded 55 volunteers to work as tutors. Others from the Long Beach Naval Hospital also agreed to help.

But the children soon proved they were more interested in the books they were reading than in the salaries they were making.

“The kids would never come to the office asking, ‘Where’s my money?’ They’d be asking when their volunteer was coming next,” Cash said. “This was not a bribe. We presented it to them that they were getting paid to report on books.”

Tutors were trained to recognize whether children actually read the books, said hospital Nursing Director Bettie Skelton. Each volunteer spent 90 minutes every Tuesday discussing the books with groups of three children.

“You could tell by reading a few pages yourself and then asking a few basic questions,” added volunteer Dane Chase, a Navy hospital corpsman. “I had some pretty straight kids. They’d all read their books.”

Kaiser administrator Melinda Zachary said the program initially drew some criticism, however.

“We encountered some people saying what a terrible idea it was, paying kids to read,” Zachary said. “But we think the connection between earning and learning is a real one. The kids took this as a job. And they took it seriously.”

School Supt. George Bloch said he hopes to entice other local businesses to help expand the program to all nine elementary campuses in the Bellflower school district, located 12 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

“There always has to be some type of incentive to learn. We decided to give it a shot and see if it works. And it did,” Bloch said.

Officials said the reading program will be continued three more months, this time using rewards such as field trips and puppet shows to motivate the children. Meantime, the 180 youngsters who completed the pay-to-read phase received certificates Wednesday.

Many acknowledged that the project has opened a new chapter in their lives.

“I read 20 books and made 30 bucks. So far I’ve spent $10 of it on new clothes,” said 10-year-old Wendy Mazzanti.

Said 9-year-old John Everett, who read 35 books and pocketed $52.50: “I used to hate books. But I wanted to earn money for Nientendo games.”

Program champion Jarrod Manning said he has decided to become a lawyer. The book he now is watching is his bankbook.

“I haven’t bought a lot of things,” he said. “I’m saving money for college.”