Reading for Life

September 14, 2006

It seems that every summer someone new to our school asks me why Princeton Academy does not have a required reading list. Isn’t required reading a measure of academic excellence? Princeton Academy deliberately designs and develops all of its programs with our mission and long-term goals for our students in mind. We want our students to be life-long learners.

An important aspect of life-long learning is the development of a love of reading. Social psychologists have long studied how we develop our likes and dislikes. One area of this research, which seems particularly applicable to educators and parents is in the area of self-justification. Specifically, research into what has been called the “psychology of inadequate justification” holds that most people are motivated to justify their actions and beliefs. Usually, we can find external justification for what we do or do not do. Often we are motivated to gain a reward or avoid a punishment. When we can easily identify external reasons (this is especially true when a behavior is followed by a strong reward or punishment), there is no need for us to internally justify our actions. However, when there is inadequate external justification (that is, no promise of reward or threat of punishment), justification theory holds that we are likely to develop some sort of internal justification. If no one is making me read this book, yet I am reading it, I must like reading. To “like reading” is an internal justification of the behavior. Over time this attitude, with repeated reinforcement, can become a strong attitude that becomes self-reinforcing.

In 1975 Mark Lepper and David Greene conducted a fascinating study in which “play was turned into work.” Preschool children were induced to work with plastic jigsaw puzzles. One group was promised a reward, the other was not. A few weeks later all were allowed to choose the puzzles as one of their free time activities. The group that had worked on the puzzles with the promised reward spent less of their free time with the puzzles. By offering the children a “reward,” it seems that the researchers had turned the puzzle play into work.

A recommended reading list offers neither punishment nor reward for reading books. It is our hope and experience that the justification for reading comes in the form of an internalized love of reading, which leads to the many rewards associated with life-long learning.

So let your children read whatever interests them. If they read a lot, their interests and tastes will naturally grow and develop.