Read-A-Thon dilemma…?

What would I do? After the fiasco of last year, I would call it a well-intentioned idea that did not go as planned, and earnestly propose retiring the competition.

Find some other way to stimulate reading. The emphasis should be on the reading, not the scoring or competing, and it should not involve parents as monitors and police.

And how will losing encourage anyone? Let them all be winners in the pleasure of reading itself.

Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but I would think reading aloud to the kids from an actual physical book for a set period every day, a well-chosen book that grabs and holds their interest, would do more to encourage reading than any amount of logging, posting, and comparing numbers, never mind being subject to judgments and reprimands.

It’s a big fundraiser for the school. And the kids get really excited about it. So in that respect, it’s probably not going anymore.

There has been a restructuring to make it less about competition and more inclusive.

They moved it from individual competition to classroom, so you’re working with your whole class.

There are smaller goals that are easily attainable by everyone.

Audiobooks can count for students that struggle with reading.

We have local community members coming into classrooms for special reading times.

One of the main prizes is having a well-known author coming into their classroom to read.

A lot of great things happening. Just this particular aspect is problematic. Especially since most of the students are aware that there are students that are cheating. :/

No need to defend, @raum. None of that information was included in your question. I was answering what I would do, which is what you asked.

One thing I might think of doing in the situation as you’ve amended it is this: give the big prize and winner badges and ribbons and a huge amount of public praise and commendation and media publicity to the conspicuously cheating winners.

Ha! That is an amusing solution.

Hope that didn’t come off as being defensive. (I’m not on the committee or anything.) Just trying to paint a clearer picture. :)

Don’t you suppose the backlash would be a hundred times more effective than any teacher or parent wagging a reproachful finger (or tongue)? starting with the boos from the floor at the first announcement? And of course making certain the winners had some visible award to wear that no one could miss.

Well…part of the drama is that there are also students in those classrooms that are upset because they’re logging normal minutes, but students from other classes are saying they’re cheaters.

The solution may be to not have it be a competition at all. But too late now for this year. :/

Well, there’s nothing like peer pressure. Letting this run its course will probably solve it, but some innocent kids are going to get hurt.

And it’s not going to encourage anyone to do more reading. Instead it could turn some kids off it for life.

But of course it’s a fund-raiser.

I think that’s what’s going to happen. And it makes me sad. Was hoping there was a way to salvage this that I had thought of. :(

@Jeruba Hope that didn’t come off as being unappreciative of your feedback. (I do appreciate it!)

It’s my fault for not clarifying that I was looking for a solution to our current predicament.

There are definitely things they could have done differently. And things they could do differently next year.

But as someone who loves reading (and I’m sure you can relate), the idea of this discouraging kids from reading makes me sad. And I’m really wracking my brain trying to think of how to salvage this.

Why not award prizes for the best book reviews written by the students? That would show that they had read the books properly and had enjoyed them. A good review might encourage other children to try those books. If they really like reading they could submit several reviews.

Promising not to call out individuals is not the same as promising not to call out cheating. A generic statement like “we know some people are cheating, which detracts from those who are logging big numbers legitimately” calls out the cheating, while acknowledging that big numbers are not necessarily a sign of cheating (especially since some people might be cheating by reading nothing and logging 60 minutes a day). So it may be possible to confront the problem without repeating the ugliness of last year.

Two questions for you, though:

1. Where are you in the read-a-thon (i.e., how long has it been going on and how much time is left)?
2. How much trouble would it be to change some of the rules after starting?

If it’s late in the game, I don’t think there’s anything that can be done. Even if the rules can be changed on a whim, there would be a lot of upset to do so right near the end (especially among those who are playing fair, which is the group you want to protect). The only thing to do would be to focus on fixing things for next year.

But if it’s still very early on and the committee can change the rules pretty easily, they might consider resetting everyone’s minutes to zero and/or changing how they log minutes going forward (e.g., they have to record themselves reading aloud or listening to an audiobook). It’s not ideal given how some people read or listen (on the bus, while doing chores, etc.), and it’s still open to abuse (if someone uploads 100 videos, who is going to check that none of them are duplicates?), but it could help.

If the rules are set in stone, including how prizes are awarded, then maybe something can be added for those who are really doing the reading: an opportunity for them to talk about the books they’ve read (which demonstrates they’ve done so), and a new reward for doing so (e.g., a personal or small group meeting with the guest author). This requires the author to agree, of course, but it adds on a reward for people playing fair without taking anything away from those gaming the system. If necessary, this could be presented as an almost entirely separate activity (so that it doesn’t look like a rules change). It also allows the committee to do something without calling out cheating at all (if they don’t even want to do so generically).

Also, let’s take a moment to look at the bright side: these kids think that an author visit is worth cheating for!

@flutherother I like the idea of demonstrating that you actually did the work. But also don’t want to add extra work for the kids. I remember as a kid I loved reading, but didn’t like doing book reviews. :P

Boycott it. Walk out. Let it be known why you are protesting the event.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield That’s a really good point. That is an important distinction to make. It both acknowledges what’s happening and it also acknowledges the hard work.

Unfortunately, the reading part of the readathon is over. There’s still a week to log in minutes and get pledges in.

Some people have been logging minutes as they go. But some are logging them all at the end. So big jumps in minutes are expected. But the regular classes are jumping by hundreds. The cheating classes are jumping by thousands. It’s gotten so crazy that maybe the problem is fixing itself? As in the cheating is so obvious that maybe we don’t even need to call it out?

The two classes are jumping thousands of hours each couple of hours. They are currently at 55,000 minutes. Whereas the closest regular class is at 32,000 minutes with little change since Friday.

@seawulf575 Not much to walk out on. Readathon is done. Minutes are more or less in. Pledges are getting collected.

Also, school is out this week.

It’s ironic because the readathon committee shifted from measuring by money earned to minutes read because they wanted it to be about reading. :/

I just thought of something.

I’m wondering if they can fix this issue next year by using a different website to track the minutes.

They are using a website called Pledestar to track the minutes. Their website/package also includes a leaderboard where you can see the cumulative minutes from each class.

I’m wondering if this is incentivizing the cheating? When one cheating class jumps a couple of thousand minutes, the other cheating class jumps a few thousand minutes. Without a way to track, maybe this would mellow out the cheating?

@flutherother You know what might be kind of cool? If next year they had a whole shelf in the library with kids’ book reviews during the readathon. Kind of like they have in bookstores.

I really love your idea of other kids getting excited about reading a book another kid likes.

@raum “Unfortunately, the reading part of the readathon is over.”

In that case, I don’t think there’s much that can be done this year. It seems appropriate to me to issue some sort of statement acknowledging the cheating without pointing fingers, but it’s too late to fix the problem.

“The cheating classes are jumping by thousands.”

Yikes. The fact that it’s located within two specific classes makes me suspect that the teachers are involved in the cheating. Otherwise, you’d expect the cheaters to be scattered among all of the classes. If the promise from last year was not to call out individual kids, maybe the teachers can be called out? And to continue my theme of drawing distinctions, disqualifying obviously cheating classes still doesn’t point the finger at individual students. I don’t know how this would mess with the fundraising part of the event, however.

“I’m wondering if they can fix this issue next year by using a different website to track the minutes.”

I think this is a good idea. Some people are going to cheat no matter what, but a site without a leaderboard makes it harder to know how to cheat. And the harder something is to do, the fewer people that do it.

I’m also curious about the age of the students. I work with first graders, and a lot of them try to cheat at games (sometimes knowingly, sometimes because they think they’ve discovered a trick that isn’t covered by the rules). In general, my approach is to just make it harder for them to cheat and perhaps make them redo something (for example, “I’m sure you really did get a six. But the dice have to be rolled on the table where everyone can see them, so roll again. Sorry!”).

Indirect demonstrations that cheating doesn’t work tend to be more successful at preventing that kind of behavior in young children than punishing them for it is. But when the behavior persists into higher grades, it usually has to be dealt with more directly (at least, in my experience). And again, there’s the unfortunate possibility that the teachers are involved.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield Two fifth grade classes. I’m guessing it’s two friends who are just messing around with each other thinking it’s funny.

I think if it were a teacher, the cheating would have been more subtle. Also, you have to create an account with your student’s name to log minutes.

I think your suggestion to call out the cheating without calling out the individual may be the only solution at this point.

It wouldn’t really mess with the fundraising minutes. If qualifying-minutes had to be sponsored, I’m sure parents would have watched more closely so that they weren’t paying for thousands of minutes.

The readathon committee wanted to count minutes that weren’t sponsored so that it was more about reading and less about sponsors. Guess there are pros and cons for each approach. :/

My kid is actually in first grade. I’m glad they’re younger and missing all of this drama. But I used to work with a lot of the kids in the older grades and I’m bummed for them.