accelerated reader scheme - help!

[pianomadness]

Ds came home today being put onto the accelerated reader scheme and we have all the log in information etc. he excitedly read his first book and wanted to do the quiz so I logged onto the desktop and couldn't find anything but the book and an empty account - no link to the quiz.

I tried on my phone via the app and somehow managed to find the book quiz - but it said they are only allowed to do quizzes Monday to Friday 8.30-4pm.....are they supposed to be done in school time??

I might be over thinking this and struggling with the obvious but HELP! It's renaissance home connect if that makes a difference!

Sounds like. I think the idea is that they are supervised, otherwise they might have inappropriate help and this skews the data.

Ds has this - all quizzes done in school time. Only use at home for checking that the book he is reading us in there, how many points it's worth etc

Ah ok - didn't realise that but makes sense. Shame as he loves anything that gives him an 'excuse' to get on the computer!

What do the levels refer to? He says he's 3.2-3.8 level but I don't know what that means - is it some dirt of reading age?

Where do they find the time in the school day for all these online quizzes??!!

It isn't a reading age. It is a decimalised book level or reading range. I think it's 1-7.

"What do the levels refer to? He says he's 3.2-3.8 level" Accelerated Reader is a US programme and the AR numbers (3.2-3.8) refer to books that are readable by a typical child () in 3rd Grade ...pretty meaningless really.

They do an online assessment which sets the reading level they are then encouraged to read books within that range - ATOS level I think it's called - it's an indication of difficulty of the book so they choose books that are appropriate. Each book is then worth a certain amount of points - ds English teacher sets them an individual points target each term to encourage them to read plenty. Ours also get recognition for getting e.g. 100% on a quiz.

Ds loves it but he is a competitive avid reader!

Thanks all, that's really useful. Ds is quite the competitive sort with academic things inc reading so I think he'll probably enjoy this.

The levels are based on the concept of the zone of proximal development - a sufficient amount of the vocabulary should be new to them to ensure they are learning, without it being too hard for them to understand. Students do tend to enjoy it if they are keen readers but it can be frustrating if they want to read books outside their 'zone'.

I love AR! The word counts.... it does give a NC level as well which is what we use.

Ours can only quiz in school time. We had kids remotely logging on and quizzing on every book they'd read to up reading minutes and whatnot. We call it the curse of Harry Potter... they start quizzing on any and every book they've ever read and it can really skew things as it never translates into progress. Plus they're not allowed the book when they quiz and we've no way of checking that at home.

And they look for quizzes on books when they have seen the film

I would have done the same when I was a kid!

What happens if they've read a book over a holiday for example and by the time they do the quiz it's been a week or so and they've read other things and can't remember much about the book?!

I'm secondary but we do allow quizzes at home. I didnt even realise you could set limits.

The 3.5 etc on the side of books links to a range that children should read in to have challenging but not impossible books. Much out of that range they may struggle to access it and lower they dont make progress. The teacher will havd reading ages generated by the tests for each child.

Id imagine during thr holidays time still stands so you may be able to get in within those hours.

They may well need to do a quick flick through to remind themselves of the details, or read a different book. Try not to stress over this - it is meant to be fun, and the benefit is gained from the reading, not the quizzes!

I'm not stressing, just interested as we've had nothing from school and I've never heard of it before.

Ds is a completer-finisher so is he reads something he'll want to do the quiz, just because he should so I can imagine he might go the other way in holidays and not want to read because he can't do the quiz's!

Here's parent's guide.

doc.renlearn.com/KMNet/R004185509GH709B.pdf

It says,

"Book level represents the difficulty of the text. Book levels are determined using the ATOS readability formula. For example,
a book level of 4.5 means the text could likely be read independently by a typical fifth-year pupil in the fifth month of school.
The content of the book, however, may or may not be appropriate. The interest level will give you a recommendation of the
appropriateness of the content"

Fifth year pupil = YR4(UK)

We have AR in our school. They have 30 minutes every day devoted to AR so each week every child will be heard read by a teacher or support staff (TA) and we also question them about the book, genre, story, characters, sentence structure (embedded clauses etc) and what words mean.

In this AR time they also sit the test on the book they have just read. They are only allowed to sit the test on the level they are on, so no cheating the system.

We print out a report for the parents which lists the books they have read, the amount of questions they got right, their approximate reading age. We also include a sheet to suggest questions to ask their children when they read at home.

AR isn't just about reading a book but understanding what they have read. It has proved very successful in language development, comprehension and for some children just finishing a book.

The test takes place at school so they can be monitored (we certainly haven't had children try to sit a test when they haven't read the book and then try to find the answer to the question in the book )

Irvine are you sure y5= y4 here? As Mrz says, 4.2 would normally be grade 4 in the US. The kids start school a year later in the US, so grade 4 is our year 5 (in terms of age). I think that explanation was probably talking about Y5 in the UK.

I don't know, hidden, it says 4.5 means fifth year fifth month of school, so I assumed 4.? = fifth year = YR4.

I just searched few books.
Kensuke's Kingdom came back as 4.7
The Witches came back as 4.7
The Enchanted Wood came back as 4.4

Seems right for me for yr4 children, but I maybe wrong.

Uhm, I made myself even more confused, hidden.

Early reader Horrid Henry books are 2.?
And Normal Horrid Henry books are 3.? Surely these aren't for yr3 and yr4's?

I've just generally never understood why reading is based on ages or grades anyway, it's so entirely arbitrary. Vocabulary knowledge is so dependent on more than just age, and particular in reading the knowledge of a particular interested genre (say princess stories) may well be completely different to their vocabulary knowledge of a completely different area.

But yes, I think hidden is right irvine that the grade is one off on your conclusion - the grades just seem arbitrary.

Does a child have to be ahead of their expected reading level to benefit from the AR scheme?
My DS is year 3, and he has some additional needs. One of the things he really struggles with is understanding and answering questions about what he has read. I think it is linked to audio processing difficulties. He tends to shut down when I try to talk to him about the book he has just read. Getting to answer questions on the computer might encourage him.

Irvine, I agree. The Early Reader "Horrid Henry" books are very simple texts, year 1 at a guess.

AHH! So, I think you are right Irvine. Basically, it is saying 5th year because we have YR, so 3.3 would be Y3, or 4.4 y4 in the UK.

Hidden but the US has Kindergarten too which is equivalent to YR