College students as contingency managers for adolescents in a program to develop reading skills.

Researchers trained college students to run a reading program for middle-schoolers who struggled. Each tutor met one-on-one with a kid for ten weeks. They used token charts, praise, and small prizes to reward correct reading and positive talk about books.

Kids earned points for saying things like “This story is cool” and for answering questions right. The college students also set daily reading goals with each child. A control group got regular classroom teaching only.

The tutored kids jumped ahead in reading scores and kept the lead six months later. They also started saying nicer things about reading, like “I like this chapter.” The control group made smaller gains and did not change their talk about books.

Lemons et al. (2015) looked at many reading programs and saw that reading lessons alone rarely fix behavior problems. The 1977 study seems to disagree because it boosted both reading and positive talk. The gap is simple: the 1977 tutors added clear rewards for positive talk, while most programs in the review did not.

de Leeuw et al. (2024) used group rewards for engagement and also saw gains, showing the idea still works today. Mansell et al. (2002) taught kids to track their own work and got similar lasting gains, proving the benefit holds across different behavioral tricks.

You can copy this model tomorrow. Pair each struggling reader with a helper—an aide, peer, or volunteer. Give the helper a bag of tokens and a short script: reward every nice comment about reading and every correct answer. Run it daily for a few weeks. You will likely see both skill and attitude gains that last.