Intrinsic Motivation and Rewards: What Sustains Young Children's Engagement with Text?

This study investigated the effects of reward proximity and choice of reward on the reading motivation of third-grade students as measured by indicators of task persistence. The major finding from this study was that students who were given a book as a reward and students who received no reward were more motivated to engage in subsequent reading than students who received a token reward. The results of the present study revealed that the proximity of the reward to the desired behavior is a particularly salient factor in enhancing reading motivation. In this study, books were less undermining to intrinsic motivation than token rewards. The major implication is that carefully chosen rewards can foster a culture of reading motivation.