Accelerated Reading Program

[Phoebe]

Please share with me any experiences you have with the accelerated reading program at the elementary and middle school levels. Both good and bad reviews are appreciated.

[diggitydot]

Our kids have been using them forever. It's pretty user friendly if kids are capable of independent reading.

[spotty_dog]

I am not a fan of reading incentive programs. I barely tolerated RAZ kids (read leveled reader material, answer quizzes and earn "money" to build an online rocket ship) when it was not completely required for class, and I declined to do the "readers are leaders" minute-tracking competition. If we were told we had to use AR and pick outside reading from AR lists and spend class time on AR quizzes I would be fighting back hard.

I had a friend whose little boy was bright, in the top 10% of his class, and he kept not getting credit for books he read that were above his assigned AR range, but the number of points he had to accumulate would keep him from doing any reading other than stuff that was worth AR points. That's the kind of thing that sours me.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/readingincentives.htm

[Pollyanna]

Dd12 will tell you that she can read the book summary and get a 70-80% on the quiz for the book. It wasn't a program that we found particularly helpful.

[PrincessFiona]

At our school, kids earn points for their AR tests and these points allow them to have pizza parties, Fun Fridays, etc.

My real problem with the program is that kids are required to read books in their tested reading level. Example: Zoe was not ALLOWED to check out or read Barenstein Bears books from the school library because they were below here reading level. We ended up buying her several books and she used her reading time at home reading those. I tried talking with the teacher and explaining that reading should also be for pleasure and that Zoe should be encouraged to read at all levels. I also told her teacher that I don't always read at my reading level either. I sometimes indulge in fun magazines/trash novels. Zoe actually opted to miss Fun Fridays sometimes instead of being forced to read what she didn't want to.

She is a good reader and has always tested well. This takes away her ability to read some of the more fun chapter books. Sorry people, she's 8 ... if she want's to read fun kids books I won't take that away from her.

For that, I feel AR points/reading has had negative effect.

Generally, my kids know when their AR points are due by. They force read whatever they have to read to take the test/get the points and then enjoy reading whatever they want inbetween (except for my rebel Zoe )

[diggitydot]

Accelerated Reading Program

The only thing the AR tests are used for here is an end of year party for the 5th graders at a local water slide park. If kids hit their goal of 3 per term, they can go. It's a pretty low goal and every kid can hit it.

They're also allowed to read whatever the hell they want. Sometimes DS read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, sometimes a Harry Potter book. They all counted.

[Pollyanna]

Our AR tests were used as grades, that was the incentive I guess. But like I said, the tests can't be too hard because many times my kids just read the summary and took the test.

Kris, my kids have been stopped by librarians before too. Makes me crazy, if they pick something easy to read or even too hard I think they should leave them the heck alone.

[samssugarmomma]

My oldest is a huge reader and so far we've had a good experience (N=1). The first teacher that we had that really used the points as a grade was in 2nd grade. She let them read whatever they wanted and all of the kids had the same goal - 12 points. DD1 always exceeded it (averaged 36 points every 9 weeks) I think partially because she would read books way below her level and no one ever told her to stop. She wasn't doing it to pad her points .... she was loving this Rainbow Magic Fairy series and all of the books were just below her level and she could read two or three in a day.


The second teacher (3rd grade) made them read within their level and set the goal based on each kid. My loves to read kid and is reading above her grade level had a goal for 28 points. My friends struggling reader had a much lower goal (not sure what it was).

Our current teacher (4th grade) is encouraging the kids to read at the top of their level and will adjust their goals as the year goes. Right now her the goal is 36 points - for others in the class it is more, others less. The teacher also had them make a plan for how they would meet their goal (how many points do they need to earn each week). I don't worry about it too much because DD1 reads 6 point books and she is motivated by having an assigned level - "Eh - I don't want to read that ... it'll be too easy. It's way below my level." I actually have the opposite problem of PrincessFiona with Zoe - 'it's ok if it too easy ..... sometimes is fun to read something just because you like the story. it doesn't always have to push you...."



I get annoyed at the librarian's too. As long as my kid is meeting their goals, what business is it of hers what book she checks out?

[metroguy]

don't know what accelerate reading program is.. but my dd school expected her to read at level G by end of kindergarten. it took considerable effort on our part to get her to be at that level. she started out at A-and somewhere around dec, we got serious and spend an hour a day everyday to get her to read at level G.

[spaz]

I HATE HATE HATE accelerated reader, and I say that despite the fact that my son was the top reader in 3rd grade and got to invite his brother ( his best friend) to a pizza party. It is horribly misused in so many instances. Kids won't read things for fun or as Kris alluded to or just for fun because they cannot get the points. In 6th grade here they give you a test and it tells you how many points you have to get. So it punishes the best readers. So to get an A you might have to have 200 points if you do well on the test and someone else needs only 40 points... But those kids that read well have all of the other honor classes with all of the projects and then they have to read mountains of books on top of that. If it isn't on the list, forget about it.. It was one of the many reasons I pulled out my kids to homeschool them. Did I mention that I despise Accelerated Reader.

[Phoebe]

Thank you for your responses. Your thoughts are in line with reviews I have read online. This is our first experience with the AR program. The teachers have not filled the parents in 100% how they run the program. My 5th grader has 34 kids in her class. This concerns me greatly. My daughter has been giving a reading level range and a points goal. I don't know how long she has to reach this goal. I think the incentives will motivate her at first. She gets bored easily so I think it will excitement will wear off. She doesn't like reading and struggles because of her attention issues. I bet she figures out that she can make it through the tests by reading the book summaries. My 2nd grader took a test to determine her reading level. My 5th grader said she hasn't.

[spotty_dog]

The placement tests, I think they are called STAR, are an integral part of the program. It's likely your daughter took one and didn't know that's what it was for. Oh, it just curdles me all up inside to think that children are learning that the only thing that matters about reading is whether they pass the quiz. Or worse, that the only reason to read regularly is to earn a pizza party -- Books are not broccoli! They are a reward unto themselves!

I would be doing extra library visits and read-alouds to counter the negative effects. And since it's hypothetical I'd also like to say I'd coach my kids not to bother taking the quizzes and to accept any resulting decline in their grades. But in reality I'm a wuss and would probably go along with it, just trying not to overly emphasize the value of the quiz results.

[scrub-jay]

SD, I agree, by adding extrinsic motivators (pizza party) to read, kids lose the natural intrinsic motivators. Plus, pizza parties or ice cream socials sure suck for allergy kids...I HATE food-related motivators.

[Sheherezade]

I think reading instruction has totally lost track of the idea of reading as fun. My loves-to-read high school girl, who literally goes through 40 novels in a summer - is starting to dread reading because the schools make them annotate on every page as they read to "prove" they've read the book instead of asking the internet for the plot lines. It's so unnatural. Who on earth curls up with a good book and a PENCIL and writes down "simile" "alliteration", etc. as the story unfolds? It's crazy talk. If this kills her love of reading, I'll go postal. It did make my son hate reading. It took GoT to get him back to it.

So....my point being...your frustration with the education system won't end soon. They need to teach kids the skill of reading and then move on to analysis or something. They've gone crazy with all this instruction and intervention in the mid levels. Let the kids read books they LIKE. Don't make it work.


Angie

[Pollyanna]

So....my point being...your frustration with the education system won't end soon. They need to teach kids the skill of reading and then move on to analysis or something. They've gone crazy with all this instruction and intervention in the mid levels. Let the kids read books they LIKE. Don't make it work.


Angie

So true!