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Home : 2005 : May : 30

AR
By Lori

Hi Mary,

I'm not sure you would like AR from what I have read from your posts here at Pro Teacher (assuming you are the Mary that posts such great language arts information). At any rate, the questions on the AR quizzes
are usually basic recall questions that prove the student read the book. Most of the questions are not of a higher order thinking skill type. Now there are Literacy Skills tests that are available for some books that do delve into more higher order skills.
At any rate, I think AR is a great tool to help with accountability for student reading, but too often the program is abused.

It is used as the only indicator of reading and some seem to think it tests a student's comprehension. It does not. In addition, the leveling system used by AR (ATOS -- don't ask me what the acronym stands for -- I don't have it here at home) takes into account only the decodability of the vocabulary used in the book. For example, AR levels Holes by Louis Sachar as a 4.6 book -- NOT! Now AR does indicate an interest level with the readability level, but too often that interest level is not used by schools and teachers only the number. I have fought this battle for years in my school!!! AR does not account for plot structure (like the flashbacks, etc, in Holes, sentence structure, maturity level of the subject matter) when they place the number value on the book -- only the decodability.

A similar program that you can try and use for free if you want an accountability for the books read by your students is

http://www.bookadventure.com

You can sign your class up for free. It uses the same type of format as AR, but the leveling is a bit different. ATOS is propriatory (?sp) for AR. That way you can have a "grade" "proving" the student read the book.

Personally, I like discussion and written response much better, but this gives the powers that be a concrete grade that makes them feel better about student reading. Discussion requires more effort on the teacher's part and sometimes requires the teacher to read themselves (Oh, my, what an idea?!?!), so AR is used by many schools.

It is a good program when used correctly as motivation and as a portion of the reading grade. AR recommends no more than 25% of the total grade be based on AR. They also recommend that the AR grade be divided as

50% comprehension (ie. Quiz grade)
25% Book Level (determined by the Star test and based on each student's individual level -- i.e. they read in their zone of proximal development) and
25% points (which is an indicator of how much reading they are doing)

Hope that helps.
Lori