In elementary and middle schools, we should get a certain number of AR (Accelerated Reading) points in each grading period. You earned these points by reading books and taking quizzes about them. The longer or more difficult the book, the more AR points it was worth. Based on your reading level, you had to get a minimum number of points in each marking period, but there were incentives to go above and beyond. If you get 25 points, you get a candy, 100 points and have to go to a pizza party, etc. This seemed to help many students find motivation to read, but it didn't really affect me. I liked to read on my own schedule, not on my teacher's. No amount of candy or extra playtime would change that. There were times when I read like crazy, three or four books in two days, other times I didn't feel like it and went a week without reading at all. And I observed that, over the long term, those who were incentivized to read in elementary school lost that motivation in high school when there were no incentives other than grades in class. This only added to my frustration with my school and the school district. Instead of letting students discover the incredible joys of reading for themselves, as I did, they were forced to read just so they could get a mediocre piece of pizza at the end of the year. This not only damaged the basic pleasure of