What Works-A Skeptic Is Sold

Three years ago, when my district received a grant to provide every school with the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, I wasn't interested. I thought the program was a waste of time, that high school students would not buy into the idea of reading for points. You could say I went into it kicking and screaming. Now, I'm so pleased with the program that I want to share our success with others.

We are using AR with our "regular" English classes, but it's being used most intensively—and with the most impressive results—with the struggling readers in our special education and remedial reading classes.

My first experience using AR was in partnership with one of our special education teachers, who, at first, was the only teacher willing to give the program a try. Last fall, she and I used the STAR test (AR's test of reading ability) to determine her students' reading ranges. Then she instituted a daily silent reading period with an AR book. By midyear, we had seen significant gains in the students' reading abilities, as measured by STAR. Most students went up two grade levels. In addition, we saw students who had essentially been nonreaders express a newfound interest in reading.

My colleague and I were impressed. And thanks to our experience, this year all the special-ed teachers started using the program in their English and study skills classes. Our ninth and tenth grade English classes, including the remedial reading sections, have been using it, too.

But while AR has been helpful with our regular classes, we've found it most effective for our struggling readers.

It turned out that purchasing books to accommodate these readers' limited skills was crucial to their success. I was apprehensive at first about adding these books to our collection, since conventional wisdom says that teenagers won't read juvenile-size paperbacks about younger characters. But I knew I needed to give these students books they could read, so I asked our elementary librarians to recommend some titles at the third and fourth grade levels that they thought teenagers would enjoy. These included the Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka, the Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine, the Anastasiabooks by Lois Lowry, and sports books by Matt Christopher. The result? As they stopped struggling just to read the words, the students' comprehension improved. And they actually discovered pleasure in reading.

For special-ed and remedial reading students, we use the STAR test at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to assess their reading skills. These students get quite a bit of guidance from their teachers, who start kids reading books at the lower end of their reading range and incrementally raise the level of difficulty as they improve.

I've heard people say that AR takes the joy out of reading. Just the opposite has happened with our struggling readers. They now beg to read longer than the allotted silent reading time in their classes. They take their AR books to study hall, and even spend part of their lunch periods in the library reading. They recommend books to one another. Some of these students even come to the library to check out books that aren't part of the AR program.

What's behind this change? I don't have a scientific response, but I know that the kids are very motivated by the quizzes and want to do well on them. I also believe that programs like AR or Scholastic's Reading Counts are successful because they provide structure. Struggling readers walking into a high school library to find a book for their classes are overwhelmed. They don't know how to use the catalog and have no mechanism to help them find books in their reading range. AR fixes that. Once they know how to use the catalog to search for AR books, the structure of the program gives them the support that they need to find a title they'll be successful reading.

In my 11 years as a librarian serving teens, I've never seen them reading like they are now. Our circulation has more than doubled. Many high school students don't read unless it's required for their classes. Incorporating AR into their classes ensures they will be rewarded for what is essentially leisure reading. Couple that with increased reading ability, and I believe we've got a winner.