if a kid is being lazy there's simply no way around "cohercion" as you put it. You know how I know he's being lazy? Because I used to do the same stuff for the same reasons, and my parents and teachers saw through it and didn't make excuses for me or any other kid.
We were expected to grow up and learn to do work even when we didn't want to.
I remember being at a point where I could read but it took effort, so I would just vibe it.
It wasn't coercion that got me to be less lazy, it was the time when I put clearly labelled sugar on my food instead of salt.
When I was in kindergarten, we were read a book called The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read. The main character was a Mr. Magoo-type character, except merely illiterate instead of functionally blind. He was always making mistakes like this, for example buying wax paper instead of spaghetti because they both came in long boxes. Eventually his wife teaches him how to read and his next grocery trip has all the correct items.