Accelerated Reading

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Accelerated Reading

• By
• Tracey Crawford
• Mendenhall Elementary

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What is Accelerated Reading?

• The Accelerated Reader (AR) Program provides
  teachers and children a fun and exciting way to
  promote reading at home and in the classroom. A
  wide variety of books are marked with colored
  labels in the Media Center to indicate that they
  are AR books. Students may read AR books and take
  the associated five to ten question test to earn
  points toward incentives, such as pencils,
  bookmarks, pencil grips, certificates, etc. The
  kids love to watch their progress, and teachers
  involve the students in setting AR point goals
  for the year.
• The Accelerated Reader, or AR (Advantage Learning
  Systems, 1993), is a learning information system
  that enables freestanding computer-assisted
  assessment of student comprehension of real
  books.

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What does AR facilitate?

• more frequent and more detailed assessment in
  less time and with greater consistency
• formative feedback for the student
• student development of metacognitive awareness
• increased student motivation to read more,
  longer, and harder books
• formative feedback for the teacher
• class-wide diagnostic information, including
  alerts regarding students who are at risk
• teacher promotion and management of effective
  reading practice
• The Accelerated Reader is a curriculum-based
  assessment tool that provides a summary and
  analysis of results to enable teachers to monitor
  both the quantity and quality of reading practice
  engaged in by their students. Students administer
  comprehension tests voluntarily themselves, and
  the system is intended specifically to have
  strong formative effects on subsequent learning.

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How does AR work?

• After reading, the student goes to the computer
  and takes a multiple-choice comprehension test on
  the book's content. Tests may have 5, 10, or 20
  items, depending on the length and difficulty of
  the book. The computer scores the test, awards
  the student points based on the results, and
  keeps a complete record. For a book valued at 10
  AR points, such as Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, a
  student would receive 10 points for a score of
  100 percent, 9 points for 90 percent, and so on.
  However, the student must score at least 60
  percent on the test to earn any points at all.
  Further, the software designers recommend that
  teachers target 85 percent as being optimal for
  students.

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Book Selection

• Students select their own books and read at their
  own pace. In addition, teachers may choose to
  allow students to take tests on books that are
  read to and with them. This is a popular choice
  with new or delayed readers and in classrooms
  where the program is used with classwide,
  selective or elective peer tutoring. In this
  case, both assisting and assisted participants in
  reading activities may subsequently self-assess
  their comprehension of the book on the AR system,
  with 85 percent correct responses remaining the
  optimal target. However, in most classrooms, the
  majority of AR points will be earned through
  independent reading.

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Testing

• The software has a default setting that allows
  students to test on a book only once, although
  this can be changed by the teacher in extenuating
  circumstances (if, for example, the teacher
  learns that a student was unwell during a test).
  If a student does not pass a test, it is probably
  because she has not read the book or the book was
  too difficult in the first place. In neither case
  does it make sense for the student to retake the
  test, since doing so can lead to a better score
  attained simply as a result of feedback from the
  first test. Further, the regular retaking of
  tests may lead to cheating or promote guessing
  (conscious or otherwise).

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Reports

• As students test on more books, the AR system
  enables close monitoring of general levels of
  reading performance. The software provides the
  teacher with an automatically updated analysis of
  scores for individuals or whole classes details
  include average percentage of correctly answered
  questions, difficulty of books read, points
  earned, and other diagnostic information.
  Computer-generated at-risk reports enable the
  teacher to guide each student's reading practice
  for maximum effectiveness.

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Reading Renaissance

• It is a component in the wider school-development
  program known as Reading Renaissance. The
  program is currently in use in more than 45,000
  U.S. schools (more than 1 in 3) and it is
  spreading to other countries. The associated
  Model Classroom Program identifies and
  celebrates classrooms in which good practice in
  implementing Reading Renaissance has been
  evidenced.

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Misconceptions about AR

• Despite the availability of staff-development
  training, AR is used rather differently in
  different schools, and opinions about it are
  often formed on the basis of its implementation
  and use (or misuse) in one particular context.
  Those without broad knowledge of the program also
  tend to confuse it with other, sometimes
  significantly different, software.
• The Accelerated Reader does seem to motivate many
  students to read more, and to that extent it
  could be considered at least partially a reading
  motivation program. However, there is nothing
  whatsoever in the software that requires the
  attachment of extrinsic rewards for reading. The
  decision of whether to use a reward system is a
  matter to be determined purely by the
  professional judgment of the teacher, who knows
  his or her students best. In schools where
  rewards are attached to AR points, many teachers
  wisely choose to make those rewards books or
  vouchers for books.

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AR is not

• It is not a substitute for balanced reading
  instruction
• Whatever its advantages, AR should clearly not
  form the basis or core of the reading curriculum.
  It is supplementary and complementary to balanced
  reading instruction, including instruction in
  phonics, and not a substitute for it. It is just
  another tool to help the teacher deliver the
  curriculum effectively, albeit a powerful one
  under the right circumstances.

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Jim Trelease on AR

• NOW used in half the school districts in the
  United States, the Accelerated Reader program has
  no shortage of advocates. And like anything that
  gains widespread fame and approval, it has its
  share of critics. This page offers excerpts (with
  Web links) and commentary on recent research
  involving the Accelerated Reader program, both
  pro and con, including
• Stephen Krashen "The Lack of Experimental
  Evidence Supporting the Use of Accelerated
  Reader"
• Linda M. Pavonetti, et al "Accelerated Reader
  What are the lasting effects on the reading
  habits of middle school students exposed to
  Accelerated Reader in elementary grades?"
• Renaissance Learning (AR) "A response to
  Pavonetti article"
• Keith Topping "Formative Assessment of Reading
  Comprehension by Computer Advantages and
  Disadvantages of  The Accelerated Reader
  Software."
• Linda D. Labbo "Questions Worth Asking about The
  Accelerated Reader A Response to Topping."

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Bibliography

• www.readingonline.org/critical/topping/rolarD.html
  
• www.sbe.mps.k12.mi.us/AR_program.htm
• www.renlearn.com/ar/default.htm
• www.trelease-on-reading.com/whatsnu_ar.html