In a country where smartphones and short-form content compete for attention, Singapore is trying an unusually simple intervention: get people to read a book for 15 minutes a day and reward them for showing up. The National Library Board (NLB) launched ReadSG, a five-year national reading movement, on September 6. One part of the initiative, the ReadSG Challenge, lets participants log at least 15 minutes of reading each day on the government’s CrowdTaskSG platform and earn virtual coins that carry a small monetary value.

The financial reward is deliberately tiny. The real objective is to turn reading into a repeatable habit rather than create a new way to make money.

How Singapore’s reading reward works

Participants can log one qualifying reading session a day.

A session of at least 15 minutes earns 20 virtual coins. CrowdTaskSG values 1,000 coins at S$1, meaning each daily reading session is worth just S$0.02. It takes 50 qualifying days to accumulate 1,000 coins.

The system is built around self-reporting rather than an app continuously monitoring whether someone is actually reading. Participants declare that they completed their 15-minute session.

That makes the program less about policing reading time and more about creating a small daily prompt to return to a book.

Singapore is not really offering a reading salary

The headline that Singapore is “paying people to read” is technically correct, but the numbers tell a different story.

At 20 coins per day, even someone who logs a session every day for 50 days receives only S$1 in value.

The reward is therefore closer to a behavioral nudge than an income stream. The program uses gamification, including points, reading streaks, and redeemable rewards, to make a habit that can otherwise be difficult to maintain feel more immediate and measurable.

There are additional incentives associated with the challenge, including opportunities linked to campaign events and other activities, so the small daily coin reward is only one part of the wider program.

Why is Singapore pushing reading now?

The campaign comes after Singapore’s 2024 National Reading Habits Study highlighted an important distinction between reading broadly and reading books.

The study found that 89% of adults read more than once a week when all forms of reading were included, but only 28% reported reading books, including eBooks, more than once a week. Online articles and news were much more common reading formats.

That matters because reading a headline, scrolling through posts or consuming short online articles is not necessarily equivalent to spending sustained time with a book.

NLB says reading can support cognitive benefits, broaden people’s perspectives, and encourage deeper engagement with ideas. In its 2024 study, 90% of respondents agreed that reading can improve critical-thinking skills, while 93% said reading can broaden their worldview.

The challenge is therefore aimed less at teaching people how to read and more at encouraging them to devote regular time to sustained reading.

Why just 15 minutes?

The NLB is deliberately starting small.

It argues that habits are easier to establish when the initial commitment feels manageable. A 15-minute target can fit into a commute, lunch break, or time before bed without requiring someone to reorganize an entire day around reading.

The five-year structure also reflects the same philosophy.

Rather than running a short promotional campaign and measuring success through one burst of participation, ReadSG is designed to make reading a recurring part of daily life. President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the movement’s patron, has emphasized that meaningful changes in habits can take time.

ReadSG is bigger than the cash reward.

The reading challenge is only one element of the five-year movement.

NLB has also introduced initiatives designed to make books easier to discover and borrow. One program, Get It Now, makes a selected popular eBook available through the NLB Mobile app for immediate borrowing on the first Friday of each month until March 2027.

September has also been designated National Reading Month, with reading-related activities taking place at libraries across Singapore.

This is important because incentives alone cannot necessarily overcome the practical reasons people stop reading, such as lack of time, limited access to books or simply finding other forms of entertainment more convenient.

What does the data say about Singapore’s reading habits?

Singapore’s latest reading survey paints a mixed picture.

Most adults continue to read regularly in some form. The 2024 study found that 89% read more than once a week. But books accounted for only 28% of reported reading materials, compared with 76% for news and 65% for online articles and social-media or website content.

The survey also found that 62% of respondents said they spent more time on other activities, while 38% said they became bored after reading for a while.

That helps explain the focus of ReadSG. Singapore is not confronting a population that has stopped reading altogether. It is trying to encourage more sustained engagement with books amid an increasingly crowded digital environment.

Could small rewards actually change reading habits?

That remains an open question.

There is an obvious psychological appeal to turning a routine into a measurable challenge. A streak, points total or small reward can provide an immediate signal of progress, even when the larger benefit of reading may take months or years to become apparent.

But the NLB itself is treating ReadSG as a long-term movement rather than a quick experiment with guaranteed results.

Its five-year timeline acknowledges that the difficult part is not getting someone to read once. It is getting them to come back tomorrow.

The bigger idea behind Singapore’s experiment

The most interesting part of ReadSG may not be the S$1 reward.

It is the government’s attempt to use a digital platform to encourage people to spend less time consuming fragmented digital content and more time engaging with longer-form material.

There is a certain irony in the approach. Singapore is using an app-like, points-based system to persuade people to spend more time away from screens and with books.

But that may be precisely why the program has a chance to attract attention. It translates an old-fashioned habit into a format familiar to a generation accustomed to notifications, streaks and rewards.

For now, Singapore is not paying people enough to make reading profitable. It is paying them just enough to turn the first 15 minutes into a challenge.

Fact-checking note

ReadSG is a five-year National Library Board movement launched on September 6, 2026. Its ReadSG Challenge awards 20 virtual coins for one logged reading session of at least 15 minutes per day, with 1,000 coins valued at S$1. The program is therefore a very small financial incentive, not a meaningful income source. The wider movement includes other reading initiatives and is intended primarily to build sustained reading habits.