Re: Accelerated Reader was SRA kits

[Tanya Sharon <ab6926@WAYNE.EDU>]

Teresa,
I've seen lots of complaints about Accelerated Reader. Besides what you
describe, librarians complain that lots of wonderful books are never signed
out since AR arrived at their school because the children only choose books
they can get points for and not all books, obviously, are in the AR
computer base. Students who have been reading and enjoying books above
their grade level turn to selecting books for the ease and speed of reading
and the number of points so they can accumulate points faster. Any
discussion of books overheard by teachers and librarians is about the
number of points and how fast you can get through them.

Teachers have said they are so happy their students are now motivated to
read with AR that they aren't going to complain about the lack of depth in
the comprehension questions. But it seems that children are not motivated
to read. They are motivated to get points (for whatever the school does
with the points). When the rewards are removed, I doubt the children will
continue to read. Yet when a teacher models his/her own excitement and
enjoyment with reading, continues even in the upper grades and high school
to read aloud to the class from wonderful books, and provides a wide
variety of books for students to choose to read, with no rewards, students
are motivated to read even in summer and over shorter vacations. I speak
from such experience with my classes.

Tanya

At 03:27 PM 7/6/00 -0400, you wrote:
>> If you have ever discussed a book with other adults you must know that
>> there are often a variety of opinions as to what was the main idea, what
>> was the author's point or point of view, etc. The comprehension questions
>> and answers given in these kits and guides assumes there is only one
>> correct answer. I am a very good reader but I was often crestfallen to
>find
>> that my answers were not the "right" one just as I was devastated when on
>> multiple choice tests my answer didn't even appear as a choice.
>
>
>Well, and here's where Accelerated Reader falls flat on its face.
>
>For those of you who don't know, Accelerated Reader is a program *highly*
>popular in middle & elementary schools.  Basically it involves "grading"
>books into reading levels-- kids test using a multiple choice test on the
>computer (a glorified vocabulary test, essentially) and then get a "reading
>level."  They must read books at that reading level.  All the books have
>little stickers that tell what level they are.
>
>After the book is read, the student goes back to the computer and takes a
>ten question (some are a few more than this) multiple choice quiz on the
>book.  There's a ten question quiz for Cat In The Hat and a ten question
>quiz for Crime & Punishment.
>
>A score of 80% is considered passing.  The student can print out results &
>have the teacher & parent sign.
>
>Different books are worth different points, and as students take tests they
>earn points that correspond to the number of questions they got correct and
>the difficulty of the book.  Most schools link these points to prizes,
>privileges, parties, and even grades.  Some schools require students to earn
>a certain number of points per grading period or to take a certain number of
>AR tests.
>
>I'm bringing this up (and writing a very long message about it! ;)  ) only
>because AR is touted as the savior for reading programs-- "kids will read to
>earn points and the teacher doesn't have to do any of the work-- the
>computer tracks it!!!!!!!!!!"  (You really need a lot of exclamation points
>to get the full effect of the hysteria surrounding AR.)
>
>It's kind of a 21st century SRA.  And the same troubles with comprehension
>questions & differing interpretations are there.  I've taught _Animal Farm_
>in five different classrooms, and when I took the AR test, there was one
>question I just did not know-- two of the answers seemed plausible.  Many of
>the questions are purely factual recall.  And of course there's the fact
>that the student at no time has to actually *talk* to anyone about what s/he
>is reading or react to the reading or connect to it in any way.
>
>Teresa Glenn
>
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