Decelerated Reader

I honestly can’t tell you if I used Accelerated Reader when I was young.  If I did, it was only in the seventh grade, and only ever really as a side thought.  Many teachers now require reading daily, twenty minutes written in a log and signed off on by the parent.

I’m trying to think of a worse way to get kids to ENJOY reading.  Because really, what is the purpose of teaching reading if not to help them enjoy it.  The problem I can see developing with this sort of system is that kids tend to do whatever you tell them not to do, and refuse to do whatever you tell them they have to do.  I imagine if you told kids that junk food was good for them and they needed to eat more of it that they would suddenly become obsessed with broccoli.  Incidentally, my niece’s favorite food is broccoli.  She calls them “tree veggies.”

So I imagine that the same sort of thing happens with reading.  I know that when I was in first grade, we had a sort of reading race.  Every day, we had to log what we read at home and have it signed off by our parents.  Then, because it was football season, the teachers designed a bulletin board to look like a football field.  Each student’s name was written on a football shaped card with velcro on the back.  Each day, depending on how much that student had read, the football moved forward across the field.  Although I think I probably read as much as the other students in my class, my football only moved about three inches on that board because of how infrequently I had my mom sign off on my reading.  I just didn’t tell her.  I don’t know that I even told her about the assignment.  I honestly can’t remember turning in any reading hours, but as I’m pretty sure I would have remembered my fierce Mrs. Thompson reprimanding me for not doing my work, I must have turned in something.

The problem was, I didn’t want to do my homework.  I didn’t mind reading, but once it became homework, I hated it.  In junior high school, we had something similar to Accelerated Reader.  It was a program on which we were tested on the books we had read anyway.  We didn’t earn points for the tests, though, we earned a reading level and a pass fail grade on the tests we took.  Our options were to take the tests or write a short blurb about the book answering certain questions.  I opted to take the tests.  I only did it, however, to “improve” my reading level scores.  If it weren’t for that program, I would have been required to read books far below my reading level all through junior high school.  Once they noticed that I had a consistent reading level of above eleventh grade, they stopped trying to get me to read sixth grade level books.

I don’t know if AR works.  I haven’t seen it in action.  I know that there seems to be two sides to the spectrum, though.  Parents and teachers either hate it or love it.  My sister, who is a teacher, finds it effective in her classes.  I think if used properly it can be effective.  If it is used like we used it in my junior high, maybe it can be effective.  Students who can utilize it so that it is effective can use it, and students who struggle with it, or who find it to be unhelpful, could have a different assignment   It might need to be decided on a by-class basis.