AR problems...

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AR problems...
By NC5th

I think the problem with AR is that it tests such low-level knowledge of a book. Like a previous poster said, you can skim a book and find the answers. It doesn't assess the deeper themes of a book. None of the questions
reach a high level on Bloom's taxonomy. They're all basic, low-level questions. I, too, think that AR is detrimental to children and their reading motivation.

I was reading Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards." In it, he talks about how teachers use so many rewards to try to motivate. One example he uses is Book It!, the pizza program to motivate readers. I remember doing

Book It! when I was a kid, and what he said applied directly to me. He talked about how kids are supposed to read so many books to reach their goal for Book It! They don't choose difficult books or even books at their level. They pick the easiest books they can to get the number of books read. It's not encouraging them to challenge themselves, to pick books they will truly enjoy. It's just trying to reach a certain number of books.

This is my same issue with AR. I don't think AR should ever be used as part of a reading grade. It's not really assessing whether or not student's truly understand a book. Anyone can take an AR test and guess the answers. It's multiple choice. Even if you haven't read the book AT ALL, you still have a chance at passing just based on simple statistics.