Accelerated Reader-High School/Learning Disabled

Scholastic has its Accelerated Reader version called “Reading Counts.” Both ask students questions about the book they finished and then the student earns so many points for their effort. Each book is worth a maximum number of points.

What do I think? I use AR and Reading Counts to try to help kids find books to read on the independent level. (We use it in conjunction w/Scholastic Reading Inventory—SRI—for getting at reading levels.)

I like other forms of demonstrating comprehension than Q & A each time. I think many LDer’s have some issues here, even if they’ve read and gotten the gestalt of the book. They may be weak in some specific area of comprehension.

It is one tool. Not an exclusive, or even a go-to tool for me personally. Except for the objectives mentioned.

Depends entirely on how it’s implemented — and it’s one relatively small piece of a program. The librarians’ listserv discusses this often and deeply — do a search for LM_NET archives :) Often it gets kids a whole lot more reading practice than they would have gotten. (One librarian complained about kids reading the easiest books they could to get their points… to which someone gently pointed out that that was her son being described — who wouldn’t have been reading independently *at* *all* otherwise so as far as she was concerned, Dr. Seuss was better than nothing.)
There are schools that think it replaces reading instruction (better readers do more independent reading… therefore (not!) if we force more independent reading or pretending to do it, the kids will be better readers.) There are schools where cheating is rampant (great lessons being learned there). There are schools where it’s competitive — one more chance for LD kids to lose. Other schools have kids setting goals for themselves, challenging themselves, and basically reading much more closely and thoughtfully than ever before.