Accelerated Reader program

Mari,

I would write a note and request that your son be able to select books at his actual reading level as determined on his IEP. Perhaps you have a copy of recent achievement testing that you could attach.

I dealt with something very similar today. I am working with a child who is on primer reading level and his book list for Reading Counts (which is liek AR) began at the 2.5 grade level. I went to his regular teacher and asked her to please print out a new list for him with first grade books.

Janis

I found the STAR test to be a pretty neat quick scan to see if a child can read library books. I played around with the test and found it fairly on the mark - again noting this is NOT nor was it ever intended to be a formal evaluation for LD diagnostics.

When A.R. is used by pros who know something about behavior management and how rewards can be effectively and fairly used - it can really up the amount of reading in a school - it can really challenge all to read at their level. Ken C

They used AR in my daughter’s school last year. At the beginning of
third grade, she tested on a third grade, second month level on the
STAR evaluation. Three months later, she tested on a second grade level
of 2.0. I have a friend whose sixth grader tested at an eighth grade
level, and then several months later at a fourth grade level.
My nephew, a junior in high school, tested at a fourth grade level
last year. They had him redo the STAR, and he went up to
11th grade level. AR seems to be unreliable to me, based
on personal experience, at determining a child’s reading level.
I am not a reading expert by any means, but I have seen many
inconsistencies such as the ones I mention above.

In my 8 yr old’s second grade class AR is apart of her reading grade.
But she can barely read on a kindergarten level. I have simple books at home for her to read but she doesn’t know some of the words. I have to read them to her. I have requested that they let her check out books on her level. But still she comes home with books that are more on my fifth graders level.

When A.R. is being administered correctly, students should be choosing books (and have them available) at their tested comfort level. It appears there are either mistakes or miscommunications going on.

[quote=”MichelleKelley”]But still she comes home with books that are more on my fifth graders level.[/quote]

It’s always a fine line, isn’t it? I’m betting the library staff and/or teacher is allowing the student to choose. A student can and will choose based on a friend’s recommendation, or by watching others. I have a student that does this. What I do is make an agreement with the librarian to take 2 books out for that student. I select one and discretely place it in his backpack. He picked what he wanted so he feels “one of the crowd”, and he also had a book to read at home at his level. I bet if you ask the teacher to do something similar, it’ll work =:-)

We have been using A. R. for many years…..
Yes, I have had kids who have STAR tested VERY high (no way possible) and VERY low (they must have had their eyes elsewhere). After the first couple books/tests, you can get a pretty good idea. I have also had students who CHOOSE to get books above or below the level they should be reading. I do put a BLOCK if the student is reading where they shouldn’t be and continually getting 100% or continually failing a test. But I prefer to allow this to occur natually. Most students will challenge themselves.

Although we have some parents who have fought the system, I really feel it helps students. In this day and age, even my LD students can find a book report online without ever even picking up a book. The elemenatary students LOVE reading now. The older high school students who did not have AR when they were younger, really dislike reading(or at least the majority).

I do write IEP’s that include, “Student will earn X2 the points earned” , “Student will earn X3 the points earned”, tests may be read.

I really do love using it and really feel it is an awesome program.

I get kids coming home with books chosen by the teacher or librarian, supposedly on the kid’s level. (*not* AR, but the issue of having the books chosen for you) It has been bad in first-language cases and hopeless in second-language. A gifted child in Grade 4 was coming home with books written for three-year-olds. The content was insulting, and he wasn’t learning anything because the vocabulary, planned for a parent to read *to* the child, was off the wall, overly advanced and totally unplanned. It would be nice if a good caring teacher had time to select carefully an individual book for an individual child, but in the real world a rushed teacher grabs anything with Level 1 on the cover.

I am a para pro in an elementary school that uses star, accelerated math and reading. I have taken the opportunity in our building to build our test lists. In our library we have sections of books that are level by letters that stand for reading grade levels. ex. A - 1.0-1.5, B 1.6-1.9, C - 2.0-2.5,etc.,

Besides those sections each teacher has books in their classrooms that are leveled the same way as the library. This is a lot of work on every to have the same system, but it works well for the students and teachers once it is administered.

Also, as parents you can go to www.renlearn.com and click order quizes and it will give you a title or author query to look up your son or daughters books. Please check the ISBN numbers some books have different stories same title. This will give you the reading level if it is not written on your book or is coded like ours. It will also tell you if it is lower grades, middle grades or upper grade appropriate.

We want our students to become independent to make choices to what they want to read. We can only guide them to what would best suite their needs based on their experiences and reading level. I let my ld students pick two books out - one that is at their level (it is hard to find interesting content at lower levels) and one that maybe an adult in the family can read to them. Also, it is difficult to find chapters books that are age appropriate for younger children (Patricia Reilly Giff is a suggestion).

We also have a copy of our AR test list at the District library - so parents have the opportunity to find information about what tests are available and help them pick out books on their own time. That could be a suggetion for you.

Do I think it is the program - no. I remember when I was in school we had the SRA reading level where you read a boring card with a story and had to answer questions. The accelerated reading program allows them to get technology skills with their reading and pick out books they like at their level.

For all the fustrating things, good things come out of this. Our district did a survey last spring - students who have used AR are more likely to read for enjoyment than kids who didn’t have the AR program available.

Hope this helps. I would love to hear your comments regarding this or if you have any other helpful hints - I am a LD parent too….

I went to the renlearn.com site and it looks *very interesting*. I haven’t seen the quality of their quizzes yet but if time permits am going to get into them.

The reading levels on this site (on the buy quizzes area, type in a title to test) are OK as rough guides but you do need to be cautious about them.
I think they must use a program that gives high weight to sentence length, which is often unrealistic. Examples I tested:
The Boxcar Children gets an inappropriately high rating of 3.9 , because although the vocabulary is quite limited (around 2.5) it is written in full sentences, but Hatchet gets a somewhat low rating (5.7) because although the vocabulary and concepts are challenging, more appropriate to junior high, there are a lot of sentence fragments.
Dr. Seuss books all seem to get ratings in the 2.1 area, except Hop on Pop which is a bit higher than I would think at 1.5, and the others really are of different difficulties; Fox in Socks is much harder than Cat in the Hat, although both are rated at 2.1 .
Treasure Island, which most modern kids find very heavy going, is rated at 8.7, a bit low, and a few books by Farley Mowat which are commonly read and enjoyed in junior high and which are in modern English are rated in the 8’s as well, rather high.
Harry Potter gets fairly realistic ratings between 6.7 and 7.2. But the British and American versions of book 1, which differ *only* in the title, are rated differently at 6.7 and 7.0 — they must have sampled different pages and so got variant readings. This tells you the level of inaccuracy to be expected in reading level measures; simply not acccurate within less than half a grade level and maybe more.

So yes a very interesting and useful site, but remember that reading levels as a single number are to be taken only as guidelines.