Incentives Matter
Literacy Interventions
The boy with the fliers looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Tameka noticed him first because he was the only person standing still outside the SaveMore, a splash of orange vest against the gray cinderblock wall. Everyone else moved with purpose: in for groceries, out with bags, heads down against the October wind that cut through the parking lot.
“Ma’am?” He stepped toward her as she wrestled the double stroller through the automatic doors, Jaylen balanced on her hip. “You got a minute?”
She didn’t. She had maybe forty minutes before Jaylen needed his bottle and the twins started their afternoon meltdown, and she still had to get home, unload, and figure out what she could make for dinner from whatever the WIC vouchers covered this month.
“What is it?”
He thrust a flier at her. Glossy paper, too expensive for whatever hustle this was. “New literacy program. For kids.” He said it like he was reading from a script he’d already forgotten. “You get paid to read to them.”
“Paid?”
“Hundred dollars a book.”
Tameka almost laughed. She’d heard plenty of pitches outside this store. The vitamin schemes, the church groups, the plasma donation vans. This was a new one. “Sure. And what do I gotta buy first?”
“Nothing.” The boy shrugged. “I just hand these out. There’s a QR code. You sign up, they send you books.” He was already looking past her, scanning for the next target.
She should have dropped the flier in the trash can by the door. Instead she found herself tucking it into the diaper bag, under the wipes, where it rode home with her on the bus.
That night, after the twins were down and Jaylen was drowsing in his bouncer, she fished it out. The paper was creased now, soft at the edges. BRIGHT FUTURES LITERACY INITIATIVE, it said, above a photo of a mother and child that looked nothing like anyone Tameka knew. The woman was white, the living room behind her spotless, the child gazing up at an open book like it contained the secrets of the universe.
But the QR code was real. It opened an app store page, then an app, then screen after screen of terms and conditions. She scrolled past them the way she scrolled past everything, clicking agree, agree, agree. Three kids, she entered. Ages: four, four, two. An address. A phone number.
The confirmation text came through before she’d even closed the app.
The package arrived the next afternoon, left on the concrete step of their duplex. Tameka hauled it inside before anyone could steal it, though it didn’t look like much worth stealing: a plain brown box, light enough that she first thought it was empty.
Inside: three picture books, their spines uncracked, their covers bright. And a small tripod, the kind she’d seen influencers use, with a phone mount at the top.
The app had updated overnight. Now when she opened it, a tutorial began, narrated by a voice so patient it made her teeth hurt.
“Welcome to Bright Futures! You’re taking the first step toward building a lifetime of literacy for your children.”
She tapped through the screens. The deal was simple, simpler than she’d expected. Set up the tripod. Start recording. Read the book aloud to your child. The app would watch, would listen, would verify. Upon completion, one hundred dollars would be deposited into her CashApp within twenty four hours.
Three books. Three hundred dollars.
It had to be a scam. But she couldn’t figure out the angle. They weren’t asking for her bank account, her social, her credit card. Just her phone camera, pointed at her own living room.
She set up the tripod on the coffee table, angling it toward the couch. The twins, Destiny and Daija, were on the floor with the iPad propped between them, watching something loud and bright, their faces slack. Jaylen was in his playpen, gumming a plastic ring.
“Girls,” she said. “Come here.”
They didn’t move.
“Destiny. Daija. Now.”
Destiny looked up first, suspicious. “Why?”
“We’re gonna read a book.”
“What’s a book?”
The question hit Tameka somewhere in the chest. She’d known, of course. There were no books in this house, hadn’t been any in the house where she grew up, either. Reading was something that happened at school, if it happened at all. But hearing Destiny ask it, four years old and genuinely confused, made something shift inside her.
“Come here,” she said, softer. “I’ll show you.”
She got them onto the couch, one twin on each side, Jaylen in her lap. The app’s red circle pulsed: recording. The first book was called “Goodnight Moon,” and she stumbled over the rhythm of it at first, reading too fast, then too slow. The girls squirmed. Jaylen grabbed at the pages.
When she finished, the app chimed.
“Great job! Here are some suggestions for next time: try pointing to the pictures as you name them. Ask your children questions about what they see. Vary your voice for different characters.”
She hadn’t thought about any of that. She’d just read the words.
The second book was about a caterpillar. This time she pointed. “What color is that?”
“Green,” Daija said, uncertain.
“That’s right. What about this one?”
The girls leaned in. Jaylen stopped squirming. By the third book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” Tameka found herself doing the voices, growling like a monster, and Destiny laughed, a startled, delighted sound that Tameka realized she hadn’t heard in weeks.
The app chimed again.
“Excellent work! You’ve completed three reading sessions. $300 has been deposited to your account. Your next book package will arrive in seven days.”
She stared at the screen. Refreshed her CashApp. The money was there, already there, real as rent.
Destiny tugged at her sleeve. “Can we do another one?”
