any teachers or parents of school kids know about AR books?

[Deleted]

WTH -- when did reading get so complicated. They don't just tally up pages read each night anymore?!

[vicky]

www.arbookfind.com/collections.aspx
This website lists books by point, interest level, etc.
AR sucks. I don't remember much about it from college, sorry.

[sundancekid]

I'm so sorry your school is doing this. It's really outdated, heck, I did it in school.

A book that is 1.5 is roughly first grade, fifth month. The points are earned by taking a comprehension test on the computer. The points go up with the level of the book.


It works great for some kids, others it doesn't. It sound like it doesn't work for him. His teacher should be careful, or she will turn him off of reading altogether.

[game blouses]

We did AR when I was in middle school. The way we did it, various books were worth different points (Babysitters Club was like 1 point, The Scarlet Letter was 3 points, etc). It was not a good system for us - the book haters in the class didn't care about points, and the book lovers like me would skim books that were waaaay out of our reading level to get the maximum points. I "read" Jane Eyre in 6th grade and passed the test, but I couldn't tell you what that book is about now.

[game blouses]

Apr 2, 2013 16:29:51 GMT -5 frkls said:

Apr 2, 2013 16:22:08 GMT -5 vicky said:

www.arbookfind.com/collections.aspx
This website lists books by point, interest level, etc.
AR sucks. I don't remember much about it from college, sorry.

yeah, i have that website and have found some of the books we already have but i'm not really finding an explanation of the levels.  for example, if a book is a 2.7, does that mean it's for second grade?  should j be only reading first grade books or can he do any of the primary level books?  

2.7 means 2nd grade. I think they take a reading comprehension test to determine what grade level they're reading at. I'd ask the teacher about the range he should be reading.

[Saudade]

My elementary school did AR and it seemed to work well to motivate kids to read. We would receive points that could be used in the "store" each week to buy things. You could buy candy or toys. You could spend all or save for something bigger.

The levels corresponded with grade level (at least for our school) and most students needed to stay in their grade level due to their ability to read. We had to have X amount of points per week. So if I was working on a longer book and didn't test, I would have to read a smaller book to make sure I could test and get points.

[sundancekid]

Apr 2, 2013 16:29:51 GMT -5 frkls said:

Apr 2, 2013 16:22:08 GMT -5 vicky said:

www.arbookfind.com/collections.aspx
This website lists books by point, interest level, etc.
AR sucks. I don't remember much about it from college, sorry.

yeah, i have that website and have found some of the books we already have but i'm not really finding an explanation of the levels.  for example, if a book is a 2.7, does that mean it's for second grade?  should j be only reading first grade books or can he do any of the primary level books?  

He should have taken the STAR test which tells you his level/range. 

[textbookcase]

AR is dumb!

a level 2.7 would be 2nd grade, 7th month. Longer books will be worth more than a half point. Your teacher should have his STAR results that tell you his grade level/range for reading, as well as how many points they expect him to earn per week.

[textbookcase]

And you might want to have them re-do his star test if the one you have is from the beginning of the year. I usually have the girls take them at the beginning of the year and after Christmas break.

[Deleted]

You've gotten some answers, I just saw this if I can help in any way. I deal with AR for 6th grade.

[2boys2danes]

My kids were ESL so reading those darn AR books were about the death of us in elementary school.. I just had some seriously bad flashbacks,

The info you got is all good so far. In my boys case, they could only read in their range (or close to it) so if they were at 2.3 and they read a 4.2 book it wouldnt count. If I remember right the .5 point books have 5 simple questions about things that happened in the book and then when you get to 1 point books it goes to 10 questions about what happened in the books

If I remember right, 10/10 was 1 point, 9/10 was .9 points, 8/10 was .8 points earned etc.

This was my lifesaver... Not all books are on this but many are. I would take the quizzes myself two times and cut and paste the questions to my computer so I could quiz my kids on their understanding before they actually took the test. So they had to pass "moms test" before they took the real AR test at school.

www.bookadventure.com/quiz_o_matic.aspx


All that sound totally helicopter-y which I am totally NOT but my boys were 3.5 and 4.5 YO when they came home from Russia and so they struggled so hard with english language and concepts in books until about 5th grade.

All that being said, I HATE AR... seriously hate it. It was such a bad experience for my boys that it turned them off of reading because if you take a test and only get 5 out of 10 you get ZERO points so you read a whole book and got nothing for it.

I'm done with my rant...

[Deleted]

2boys, I am not a fan of A.R. I like the STAR testing because we can generally get a great picture of a student's reading ability, but other than that, I'm not interested in it. We don't require it in 6th grade. We do offer rewards to students when they earn points, if they want to participate, but many don't and that's fine.

[joenali]

I can't believe schools still use AR.

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2013 18:20:12 GMT -5 frkls said:

Apr 2, 2013 17:49:23 GMT -5 @tnteacher said:

2boys, I am not a fan of A.R. I like the STAR testing because we can generally get a great picture of a student's reading ability, but other than that, I'm not interested in it. We don't require it in 6th grade. We do offer rewards to students when they earn points, if they want to participate, but many don't and that's fine.

i like the star testing, too.  it's been fun to see j's percentile go up over the course of the year

And I don't know how he's motivated, or what age he is, but would showing him those results and maybe offering some sort of incentive encourage him to read? Some of my students loooove to see those numbers go up, and for a few, I do some sort of fun graph that they can move up (like for one kid, it's a football field and a football and the "yards" are his STAR levels). Some of them don't care a bit. Kids are so complicated! :PI know you're probably limited in what he can read, but a lot of students love graphic comic books, and they make those in a lot of different levels. Also, if you want to let me know his reading level, I might can recommend some books. I worked in a children's section of the library for five years before I started teaching, so it's been a couple years.

[TrickyBob]

My Middle School had used AR, I always felt so bad for the kids who read the books but couldn't get high points on the tests. They could tell you about the book but they got nervous during the tests and then the teacher would assume they half ass-ed it.

I am surprised they still use it.