Categories: Parenting

Accelerated Reader in Schools – Does it Help or Hurt?

Accelerated Reader (AR) is a program used in many schools to assess how well children can read. It seems to be taking the place of old-fashioned reading together, book reports, and observation in many schools. The Accelerated Reader website claims that one of the benefits to teachers is that they no longer have to waste time grading book reports. Apparently, the development of writing skills while showing a true understanding of the reading material is no longer important; it’s better for children to log on to a computerized multiple-choice quiz and allow the teacher to look over the results later, and enter the grade the computer issued into her grade book. Accelerated Reader is not designed to determine whether a child understands what he has read; it simply determines whether or not the child read the book and can remember key facts. While the Accelerated Reader website does not endorse or even mention the use of rewards or incentives with their program, many schools offer kids various rewards for participating in the program and passing tests.

Children participating in the Accelerated Reader program take a quiz to determine their appropriate reading level. Children are then expected to read books within their level range, and take quizzes on those books. They receive a certain number of points based on the difficulty of the book and how well they did on the quiz. In many schools, kids are discouraged from reading books that aren’t “A.R. books”: there is no Accelerated Reader test for the book and Accelerated Reader hasn’t assigned the book a reading level, so children can’t read it. Children are also discouraged or prohibited from checking out books that are above their designated reading level. Rather than being able to challenge themselves with a book they’re interested in, kids are forced to limit themselves to a narrow selection of books that a computer said they were capable of reading. Rather than being able to select enjoyable books from the school library, kids are being told what they have to read on their own time. When my daughter was in third grade, she wanted to check out one of the Harry Potter books from the school library. She came home quite upset because the teacher and librarian had both told her she couldn’t check it out, because it was above her level. It was only after I threatened not to allow Jess to participate in AR at all that they backed down. For the record, she read the book and aced the test.

Many schools offer incentives such as a piece of candy for every quiz a child passes, and create competitions both within each classroom and school-wide to see who can earn the most points. This virtually ensures that the children who are naturally gifted readers reap the most benefits, and those who struggle get even more discouraged and fall farther behind. It isn’t unusual to see a bulletin board in a school lobby or hallway, featuring pictures of the highest point-earners in each grade. Some schools offer a special field trip at the end of the year for the top few point-earners from each classroom. A gifted reader can read and test on just a few books and “earn” the special trip, while her classmate who struggles gets left behind, even though he took more tests and spent far more time reading than the gifted child.

Parents can go overboard with the Accelerated Reader mania as well. When my children were in school, the kids who read the most books (A.R. books that is) in the school were recognized at the end-of-the-year awards ceremony. When one boy came in third place, his mother publicly berated him for not winning. He was only in fourth grade, and had read more books than all but two people in the entire k-5 school. Rather than being proud of his achievement, the boy was in tears and embarrassed in front of the entire school.

Without the ridiculous rewards, Accelerated Reader could be a good supplement to traditional things like book reports and group reading, but unfortunately too many schools are misusing it. Providing interesting books and talking to children about what they’re reading is still the best way to ensure that a child is a successful reader.