Pages for Prizes!
September 12, 2025 2025-12-03 6:41Pages for Prizes!
by: Daniel Manetin
As the most common passthrough, it’s very likely that any given student at IA will pass through one of the school’s Exchanges at least once per day. And yet, the bookshelves lined up with hundreds of books are often ignored. In an effort to encourage students to up their reading, media specialist Whitney Beem is rolling out a new initiative to incentivize students to take on more books, stating that “Students read, it’s just in this environment at IA, they’re not always checking out our books.”
The initiative utilizes the Beanstack app, an option already available in students’ ClassLink directories. The app allows students to log their reading minutes, adding it to both their logs and a collective log for the school. In addition, a loyalty punch card system was proposed that would track how often students check out books. Both of these methods involve prizes, such as gift cards, that are rewarded to students past a certain goal or checkpoint.
“If you actually track your reading, you’ll see you read more than you think you do,” Ms. Beem mentioned. “If you read an article, that counts. If you read something for class, that counts.” Ultimately, the goal of this movement isn’t to stack up IA’s reading minutes, but to encourage students to find a reason for themselves to read more and engage their brain in more ways than just lectures and social media. While the contest might add enthusiasm, the overall goal is to help students see reading as a habit that can fit into everyday life with just a little effort, “Because if you don’t start ingraining reading now, when you leave academics, you’re not going to keep that up… Even reading on your phone is better than doom-scrolling cat videos.”
