Accelerated reader

Sue,
Our school uses Accelarated Readers for ALL classes starting with 1st grade. Realize that a book is designated as such because it has a multiple choice test (which must be purchased from a company)associated with it. It does not necessarily “teach” reading nor are these books all particularily challenging, good literature or even worth reading. Some of them ,however, are great such as the Tree House Mystery series by Mary Pope Osbourne and biographies. The tests are computerized multiple choice, about 10 questions. I am not overjoyed at the emphasis our school places on their use regarding a child’s reading proficiency and comprehension. For LD students, a good basal reader with thought provoking questions after a few chapters (rather than at the end of the book) seems like a better way to go. Actually it seems like a good thing for ALL students but that is another issue. Susan

There was a big discussion about this program a while back. If you go to the “search” and click that you want to search the past year, you will find this discussion if you still need more info.

I personally like the program. My kids read more because of it. But, my kids don’t read anything that isn’t on the AR list because they want the points. (Which is bad at times.) I agree with Susan, some of the AR books are good and some are not. Also, it depends on how much money the school wants to sink into the tests which dictates how many books they have on the list.

Actually, our school even has AR books for the Kindergarten class to take. My dd is in K. and is very proud about being able to take AR tests.

Donna in MO

It doesn’t teach reading; it does a nice job of enforcing and reinforcing it, though. Capstone Books has a special line of hi-low books that have accompanying AR tests, and I believe they’re non-fiction. The trick is having a ;librarian who can get the quizzes & the books. If it’s something the rest of the school is doing, then it can be a big motivational boost because it’s NORMAL :) — and that can be critical with high schoolers.

Sue Jones, webmastress
http://www.resourceroom.net

Hi Donna! I am a resource teacher and we have AR in my building. I write my own tests (the books we read in class) to add to the AR list. Many books I use are not on the list, especially any decodable book series. Your building’s AR program may have that option as well.

Olivia, Good suggestion! But, the problem is “limited time” by the teachers and the parents. We have some teachers who will read a book and then write a test for the child but that takes time. The Kindergarten teacher has written a couple of tests for her kids and I think that that is easy for her to do and also helpful for the kids just learning to read. The problem is making these hand written test available to all of the children in our school. It’s so much easier when it’s already on the computer and everyone can get to them.

Our church library has just bought a bunch of “Sugar Creek Gang” books that I would love to have on the AR list. Of course, the tests can not be purchased because they are not available. The problem is finding someone who is willing to take the time to write age appropriate, quality questions that can be used by the whole school. That is what I am looking to do right now. I hope that it’s not too hard of a task to do. Have you had any experience with this?

Also, what do you mean by your “decodable book series”?
Donna in MO

Hi Donna! Yes, I’ve had a lot of experience with this. It does take time, but who needs lunch anyway :o) I have written tests for a variety of books from a .5 level to 4.0. Once you ge the hang of it, it is pretty easy. The decodables I mentioned come from a variety of sources. Houghton-Mifflin (sp?), SRA, and Pro-ed has a series that coincides with my building’s new reading program. That is all I can think of right now. I can look Monday if you would like more info :o)

How is the weather in your part of the state? I live west of St. Charles, and we have 4 inches of the white stuff. Yippee!

Olivia, I wish we could purchase hand written tests like we can with the computerized AR tests! Time is definently a factor.

I was thinking that that was what you were talking about when you mentioned decodable books. Thanks for the info.

I live two hours south of St. Louis. We didn’t get the snow that they were calling for earlier in the week. We just got a lot of cold air. We’ve broken low temps for a couple of days now. I’m ready for spring. My daffodils are trying to bloom!

Donna in MO

AR depends upon the expertise, commitment, and training of the involved school. Properly done, it can be a powerful motivator for young readers. Improperly done, it can serve to ridicule and stigmatize at risk students. The STAR test to determine a child’s reading level appears to give fairly reliable scores for such an easy test to administer. Ken Campbell

You might want to do this through the school librarian or the teacher, but there is a school librarians’ listserv and AR and quizzes come up fairly often. I usually skip those messages (it’s a very busy mail group) but I suspect they trade quizzes. http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ has more information — it’s moderated primarily to keep vendors from taking over (you can imagine — 14,000 librarians’ email addresses!!) but the school’s librarian might already be on board.

http://www.bookadventure.com offers a program which is very similar to AR. In contrast to AR, which is expensive, BookAdventure is free and on the net. Last year when I checked, BA had over 5,000 titles — probably more by now.

The biggest difference I found between the two programs (aside from cost) is that BA’s tests are not weighted by the book’s level of difficulty. However, a teacher could simply assign weights to books and manually recalculate points that way.

Also, Bookadventure only goes through 8th grade (which, however, would be sufficient for your purposes).

Mary

Book Adventure this past fall started a point system based on the reading level of the book. K-2 get 100 points, 3-5 get 150 points, 6+ get 200 points. This is a good program. The list of books included gets added to constantly. The best thing about it is that it is free. After using it for 2 years, I could not justify the cost of getting Accelerated Reader. Everyone has to remember that these programs are just supplemental and could never replace actual reading instruction with a good program.

I agree totally with Ken, with the proper training and commitment of the entire staff, it is excellent. For those who are unfamiliar with AR, it is not a reading instruction program. The purpose of the program is to motivate children to read library books that are within thier own reading range. The STAR test helps the teacher and librarion find the child’s reading range. Our school is using it and all the stories about increasing library circulation are true. Circulation not increases, but we have proof through the quizes that the books are being read. If anyone has the opportunity to attend the National Renaissance Conference, it is an excellent conference. Jim Tralease(sp?) presented at the first conference in Nashville in 2000. He mentioned at his presentation that this was the best reading conference he had ever attended, and he said he has seen them all. For more information se their web site www.renlearn.com