Accelerated Reading

[SJandBabydoc]

Not sure where to place this so I've popped it in here hoping someone can help.

My son is in year 3 and is bright, working at greater depth in all core subjects.

We had parents evening a few weeks ago and the teacher has said he's at expected level for reading at the moment, where as when he finished year 2 he was at greater depth.

He's a very good reader, but has to be nagged to pick up a book, and up until parents evening a few weeks ago we have fallen behind reading at home since the summer holidays or should I say I've stopped nagging.

However, we are back on it and reading at home as we should but the teacher did mention putting him on something called
" accelerated reading " something that I didn't really understand.

Does anyone have any experience with this or can explain what it is please?

Is it a programme for children who are struggling? Because I was under the impression my son was doing well.

No it's not a programme for struggling readers. It is for everyone to find the right books appropriate to their level.

Accelerated reader usually starts either a baseline assessment to determine the right level of books and sets a "target". The reader then chooses appropriate books to read and then performs a quiz on the book to check their understanding. The quizzes score point towards the target.

Both my boys did this in the early years of secondary school and mostly enjoyed the challenge. (Although I did catch younger DS2 doing a quiz for older DS1 in exchange for help with something else, DS2 was a more avid reader)

Here is a helpful link
https://www.renaissance.com/products/accelerated-reader/]

No it's not a catch up programme, it's just a programme some schools use. It's really for when kids have the basics of reading mastered. Kids are tested and given a book at their level then when they've read it there's another test to check comprehension.

It’s not just for struggling readers. Thousands of primary and secondary schools across the U.K. use it. We’ve used it for over a decade. If used right it can really make a difference to both reading motivation and reading comprehension. It is not a cure all but it work very well for most kids. They really like being able to measure their reading growth so it gives them
something tangible to focus on.

I help with reading in Y1-2 and the more able readers are on accelerated reader, once they have done the majority of the phonics books. By KS2 they are all on it. They do a quiz to give them a level (usually broadly in line with their year group if they are on track) e.g 2.2 then they can choose any book from that level. If they pass the quiz on three books in a level they move up to 2.3. It helps that they can choose a book that looks interesting to them and it tests comprehension skills, not just decoding.

It's a really great programme and it seems to have really encouraged some of the reluctant readers in our school to read. I think knowing there will be questions to answer gives them a purpose to read and a lot of children like getting points.

My son’s school uses accelerated reader and he loves it. You get a baseline reading level and then read books and quiz on them to show comprehension. The reading level pitches books based on progress and he has read both fiction and non fiction. As long as the book has been added to their system you can read and quiz.

Accelerated reader put my daughter off reading quite badly! However I think that was more the fault of the way the school implemented it, than the programme itself - rather than being incentivised, it became another thing to berate the kids about, creating an attitude that you'd "failed" if you hadn't met such and such a target. It caused DD huge anxiety, compounded by the fact that the type of book she enjoyed reading wasn't on the database and therefore didn't count.

I'm not convinced it's that great, and a lot of schools implement it badly.

It's a great programme all students at DDs primaryschool were on it and my Secondary school used it for KS3.

They do a reading test and find out their reading age and then look for books which match both their ability and chronological age so it's good for advanced readers as they don't end up reading inappropriate books. They finish the book and do a quiz to test comprehension. They receive points and many schools have awards for those students who read the most words / hit a million. It may well be what he needs to get motivated.

DD was / is an advanced reader but actually hates fiction novels and would rather read a play script or a poetry book so do try other types of book if he isn't loving longer books.

Thank you all for your replies.

It maybe an option that would work for him by the sounds of it. I'd got it into my head that it was for struggling people and it was confusing me as he is an able reader.

He loves quizzes and scoring points as such so this might work into him picking up a book more willingly.