AR Reading

[teacherforhi]

I hate, hate, hate AR! (Did I mention I don't like it?)

Most of my students are barely literate (if they can read at all) and there's nothing to make them feel like big, fat failures than to have the school celebrating a certain number of points earned.

Also, if they are motivated and really try, they still feel like failures because they simply don't have the opportunities to earn the same amount of points. My students may have to read 6 or 7 books to get the same amount of points as one Harry Potter book. However, each and every one of those is just as challenging as Harry Potter is for the average child.

Our school librarian has also noticed a trend where if a book isn't selling well, the publisher will create an AR test for it. Suddenly, it's a best seller! Does that mean it's a good book that kids will enjoy reading? Nope, just means that it's a book that schools are buying so that there's one more AR option.

 

[Sparx]

I have done it for years before. I hate this program with a passion.

it does NOT encourage reading.

 

[paigevz]

Nope. Don't like it as a teacher or a parent.

 

[CF'er]

don't require AR participation. The kids are given a point goal for every quarter and the "reward" is to go to the AR Party which have varied themes. I do know that the kids are encouraged to read. My kids' point goals don't seem too high and in the elementary school they are required to have "reading materials" (AR or not) while waiting to go to their class in the AM and on the bus in the PM. This also encourages reading.

I thought my DS would be devastated when he missed his goal but he wasn't. He still reads though.

The kids are always given time either in the AM or PM or sometimes both to get books and or take the tests.

 

[taximomfor4]

hate AR. DH is a teacher, so really plays by the book with our kids but AR is the ONE thing we don't enforce. We just initial the stupid papers once a week or whatever.

My kids don't even care to take the quizzes often. We don't have a Pizza Hut nearby to use certificates at anyway.

Oh, and the STAR testing is woefully inaccurate much of the time. It had my daughter reading at the same exact range in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades! Now the same thing is happening with my second dd. She is in 3rd grade now, and her STAR results show her in the same range she was in during KINDERGARTEN.

There was a group of parents discussing this before a PTA meeting last year...apparently, many are unsatisfied.