Like Zee, my kids hated AR

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Home : 2007 : June : 24

Like Zee, my kids hated AR
By blcw

Both my kids are avid readers, and had a teacher who was a big AR user. My DS and DD refused to take part in the program, despite several meetings between the teacher and me. They both had similar complaints:
*I read
most of the books already
*I like to read for fun, for the challange, to explore something new
*Why should I take a test to prove I read the book
*I want to read what I want to read
*The tests are easy to pass, I really don't need to read the book, just skim it. (which is what my son did, in the space of 2 weeks he passed about 15 AR tests by skimming the books).

I

think AR type programs tend to ignore or do a diservice to children who are readers.

I think we are now in a golden age of children's literature; and it's not just the writing, look at the illustraters illustrating children's books, the art work is amazing and worth examining regardless of the students' reading level. It's wrong to limit a student's reading to books that have a test. But then again, we are now in an age of testing...

I will be getting my master's in library sciences, I will be a librarian who prefers to limit AR use in the library. I know many of the books are excellent, but AR books are not the end-all-be-all in children's lit.

blcw