Thanks to everyone who answered my post about accelerated reader. I am looking to establish a high interest low level reading library for my class and questioned the accelerated reader series. I want to know what books others have used in classes that high school students ( RL 2.0 and up) enjoy reading.
Re: independent/free reading
One good series for the 2.0+ student is put out by EPS (Educators Publishing Service). It’s a new series called Next Stop. I used it with students, and they enjoyed the stories and activities. Most of EPS’s other materials are on the old side, very outdated in look and feel, but Next Stop is quite good.
There are publishers that make “high-low” books — there’s a list of them on my site (www.resourceroom.net) in the “links” section — though you’ll also want to read the article about the quality of different hi-low books that’s in the reading comprehension section too.
_Stone Fox_ by Gardiner is a perennial favorite of my students; _Hatchet_ is one I *though* would be but it’s harder than it seems and takes a while to get to the “survival” part of the story; Hatchet’s author Gary Paulsen has written a bunch of easy-to-read adventures that work a lot better.
YOu might want to cruise the AR catalogues — they often group books and sell a bunch of tests of one kind of book, so they may have already culled the “hi-lo” favorites.