The Trouble with AR (Accelerated Reader)

My concern about the AR program has grown in the past few years. Accelerated Reader is book reading incentive program that claims to motivate readers of all levels. This is a computer based literacy program our schools us,  in which my sons attend and both schools have adopted this program and use it to exhaustion. The makers of the program claim that by leveling children they will have more success and therefore embrace reading faster thereby increasing achievement levels. I have found that although this program can help to motivate a reluctant reader by guiding them towards books that will hopefully find success in reading; it is limiting and I don't feel as though my children think of the literature they have read in meaningful ways.

For example: I recently read The Giver by Lowis Lowry to my fifth and seventh grade boys. They enjoyed the story but as I asked questions throughout the chapters their answers were low level. They were "thinking" about the concepts or symbols in the book. Mostly they wanted to understand who the characters were and what they did in order to answer the questions correctly on the AR quiz. What a shame. At that point I slowed it down and turned it into a project at home and forced them to dig deeper and find meaning in the story. They objected at first (because it was not required by school) but eventually complied with my requests. We began to have deeper conversations about what it would be like in a world filled with "sameness". I found them discussing the different situations on the car ride to soccer and debating over their own perspectives on the positives and negatives of the story line. I don't feel as though I pushed them to hard, just enough to cross the line into a state of higher order thinking. 

At this time my seventh grader has an assignment to read and test on a biography. He has looked and I have looked for books that he is interested in that are in his "level". This has been a challenge to say the least. I wish an exception could be made throughout the reading program to allow students to read books and possibly do an old fashioned book report! I don't think my boys have ever done one. The confines in which their reading education is held are too stringent and according to research done by Mallette, Henk and Melnick at Marquette University the data used to substantiate the AR programs' claims are less than solid. They are not the only researchers to come to this conclusion. I believe we, as an educated population, must allow our teachers some control in their own classrooms. It is important to individualize education and not only teach reading to improve achievement levels but to instill a love for reading for life.

In my opinion systems and programs are good to create a solid structure but the creativity and individualization of design must be fostered as well to create a high level education.