Accelerated reading scheme. Seems to be making dd anxious around reading

[turtleshells]

My dds school goes on and on about accelerated reading scheme. It's one big competition in our year about who's read what.

The AR scheme quizzes are once a week at dd school. Dd will read through several books a week and by the time the quiz is there she forgets about the first one and fails the test. Another thing that happens is she has started to read bigger books and the quizzes are longer, her school aim for 100% and anything less than 80% is deemed a fail and she has to redo it but the questions are quite precise and she can't always remember each detail in the longer books.

She has now taken to reading only one book a week very slowly and so anxious that if she doesn't know enough she will skip the quiz that week and continue to read the same book over again until she knows it well enough to get the 100% on the quiz.

I'm wondering if I should say anything or just leave dd to her own little plans. It's more I don't want her to associate anxiety and quizzes with reading which seems to be where this is leading. What is the point of it? Does it actually work? My dd seems to read fine it's just the quizzes she doesn't always get 100% on.

And it’s a zone of PD not a number, so DD as given a range, say 3.4-5.1. So they can choose the lower end

Yes but in the school I am in their level is set by the teacher and they can only choose from that level ie 3.5. We have staff in the library and when a child chooses the book we write in their reading record what book they are choosing etc. The school is fortunate to have at least one LSA per class in a large primary school.

I cannot imagine the likes of Judith Kerr, Julia Donaldson, Tolkien, even David Walliams (not my fave) would think that children benefit from the AR stick to find love in reading.

No but some children would never have access to those books without the AR scheme. Books cost money, library hours are getting shorter and local ones are often closed a lot. We try to foster a love of reading, we don't force children to finish books if they really hate it, but we also try to get them to see it through, to persevere if quitting seems to happen a lot. My degree is English lit, I absolutely love books and stories of all kinds. Part of my volunteering is talking to the children about their books, listening to them describe characters and plots, guessing what happens next or what would you make this character do. It isn't all read then test.

AR isn't used in the secondary school my sons attended. No time in the timetable for that.

@HelstonaireMonty also in my kids school before ar was introduced they monitored there reading , they had a reading diary which was monitored almost daily , they were taken out for reading and assessed.
Only lazy schools and teachers would of let children sit on a book for a whole year , there was reading schemes before Ar qnd all I am saying is for the kids it doesn't work so great for , lets look outside box
And when mine went to secondary ar was scrapped anyway and they did something else , many secondary schools don't use If

Our school use AR but they can do the quiz at any time rather than weekly. They also encourage them to look back through the book to find the answer if they aren’t sure. They also have to score 80% to get the word count.

@worriedatthemoment I think it is great that the school let your children deviate from the scheme and rightly so. It does seem to work for the vast majority of children but as I said my school doesn't force the AR reading at home. 30 minutes daily reading is factored into the school morning. I think it must come down to how schools use it.

Been out and about as it's Friday. Thanks for all the replies, so so interesting to find out the scheme is not designed in the way our school implement it. Dd definitely isn't allowed books whilst taking the quiz. All reading of books is done at home not in school and quizzes once a week with the expectation 2-3 quizzes are done in the once a week lesson as quickly as possible because the computer has to be freed up for the next dc. There are a few computers but has to go around whoever is taking a quiz. What's happened with my dd is she is getting anxious she will fail the test as well as the fact she feels she can't answer the questions quickly enough.

Now she's moved onto the longer quizzes she's struggling even more than before.
The teacher has said that there are other dc who are capable of what my dd isn't doing so it's a case of my dd needing to either catch up or accept she's not going to move up until her scores improve and she starts passing the quizzes.

Dd has just entered year 4 and is summer born.

Oh gosh I hadn't realised the age. Thats far too much stress at that age. They need dto be encouraging a love of learning:(

Our school do AR scheme and is quite new for them.

My DD is dyslexic, year 4 and reading 1.5 to 2.5 level per AR. Year 1 style books with flashcards in the back - pretty uninspiring.

Her reading fluency is excellent but she struggles with comprehension particularly when not interested. She reads chapter books at home which she takes in and enjoys. They are probably more like level 4.

AR is demotivating for her and I don't believe the screening test has been fully explained to her.

Been into the school several times but they won't budge as apparently it is a brilliant scheme.

We'll just carry on reading more suitable books at home alongside ticking our AR box.

Interesting to hear I'm not alone in my frustrations though.

@turtleshells. We had exactly this with DS1 in year 2/3. I didn’t discover the issue until yr3, told school and they said no more AR quizzes for DS1. Completely solved our problems.

• recommend telling the teacher.