Jubilee Christian School
Accelerated Reading Program Overview
The purpose of the Accelerated Reader system is to provide teachers with the information necessary to turn unguided independent reading into guided independent reading, and thus increase engaged reading time, ensure more successful reading, and ultimately help students develop into successful readers who read well and are well read.
The Accelerated Reader (AR) computerized information system was developed by Judi and Terry Paul, co-founders of Renaissance Learning. AR was first made available to schools in 1986 and is currently used in more than half the schools in the United States. Judi Paul, who has a degree in elementary education, found through her work in schools and from trying to get her own four children to read more books, that traditional independent literature-based reading programs did not have a mechanism to provide feedback to students and teachers about student reading practice. Examples of the traditional independent reading programs then prevalent in schools include: sustained silent reading (SSR), drop everything and read (DEAR), individualized reading (IR), and free uninterrupted reading (FUR). Each of these programs required schools to set aside 10-15 minutes per day for literature-based reading. Teachers monitored student reading practice through book reports, self-reporting mechanisms including reading journals and logs, and other means.
Judi found these self-reporting mechanisms and book reports to be unreliable indicators of engaged reading time and successful reading practice. Students often bragged to classmates that they had fooled the teacher by recording books they had not read in their reading logs. These reading programs often focused on the number of books read, encouraging students to choose the shortest, easiest books. Most importantly, reading logs, reading journals, and book reports burdened teachers by increasing their workload without providing systematic and reliable information feedback on the quantity and quality of reading practice. Without this information, teachers were unable to guide reading practice, intervene when necessary, and provide instruction when students were not successful.
AR, a learning information system, was developed to address these specific problems. AR systematically collects information on student reading practice through short, computer-based quizzes that assess reading comprehension. With more than 65,000 AR Reading Practice Quizzes, there are quizzes on practically all books in a school library. AR provides immediate feedback of results to both the student and the teacher. The teacher uses information from AR to guide further reading, helping students select books appropriate to their ability levels and interests. The information feedback generated by AR also identifies students who are not reading successfully through a quality measure (average percent correct on AR quizzes) and a quantity measure (AR points, which are based on the number of words in the book and its readability level).
To view additional research available on the Accelerated Reading System
* Terrance D. Paul "Guided Independent Reading" August 11, 2003 <http://research.renlearn.com/research/pdfs/165.pdf> (November 5, 2006)
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Jubilee Christian School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs
