Accelerated Reader - is it helpful for older students?

Lately, I have been blogging about the Accelerated Reader reading management program.  My Grade 7 daughter has been utilizing the AR program for the past three years and it continues to motivate her to read. In contrast to this, the same AR program did not motivate my older son when he was first acclimated to it in middle school, a few years ago.  Since I have witnessed first-hand two different reactions/responses to AR, I have wondered if AR is really geared to younger students and what do middle and high school students really think about AR. Does AR motivate older students and keep them excited about reading?  

I found out there are not that many studies available regarding AR use with high school students and there are some contradictory findings in most studies that focus on AR at the elementary level.  Nevertheless, I did locate one research study about students at an underperforming high school in Southern California where the AR program was recently implemented.  The authors reviewed 268 questionnaires from students and 144 of these students volunteered to be in one of eight focus-group discussions.  A majority of the students in the focus groups did not like the AR program.  According to the authors, “the main reasons most commonly cited: 1) the amount of reading required was unrealistic and too time consuming, 2) students did not like being forced to read, 3) students did not enjoy the book selections, 4) students resented their course grade being tied to earning points for reading and 5) students disliked having to pass tests to earn points” (p. 554). 

One of the primary goals of AR is to increase reading motivation.  However, in this high school research study, the students were not motivated; they did not like having their AR points tied to their English grades.  A second message is that high school students, in general, take many tests for their courses, state mandated tests and college placement exams and multiple tests for AR is an additional burden to many of them.  A third point is the AR book selections were too limited and lacked cultural diversity.  In today’s ethnically diverse society, that is very disheartening to hear.

The AR implementation phrase at the high school in this study was poorly done on a teaching level and an administrative level and it did not have the buy-in of its students.

The bottom line is AR is not for everyone; especially older students if “their unique needs, circumstances and views are ignored” (page 558).  Despite limitations in the size of the student body that participated in relation to total school population, a number of important factors were highlighted in the study and should be taken into consideration by teachers, administrators and researchers when evaluating AR for use with older readers in middle school and high school.

Source:

Thompson, G., Madhuri, M., & Taylor, D. (2008). How the Accelerated Reader program can become counterproductive for high school students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(7), 550-560.

Accelerated Reader - is it really effective for middle school students?

After reading the Nov. 3 article on reading management programs by Hansen, Collins, & Warschauer, I responded to Toni’s blog on this article about the positive experience my daughter had with Accelerated Reader (AR) at her elementary school over the past three years from Grades 4 through 6.  The AR program has been successful, overall, due to high quality implementation by her teachers, the school librarian and the administration.  The rationale for investing in the A/R program at my daughter’s school was to increase reading achievement and increase test scores and it happened as evidenced by increased reading test scores on Terra Nova tests, Grades 3-8 in 2008, and 2009.  I also believe the chances of future success appear likely as long as the school keeps implementing the A/R program in an effective manner with 100% buy-in at both the classroom and school level and continued parent involvement, as well. 

Despite my daughter’s success story with A/R, I decided to revisit the Hansen, Collins & Warschauer article for this blog because I wasn’t too clear on the article’s findings for gains in reading achievement with older students in middle school, particularly Grades 7 and 8. The article said “Despite gains in reading achievement across schools, it appears that the use of reading management programs benefit children in lower grades more than in higher grade levels” (page 66).  The authors also included a research finding by Pavonetti, Brimmer, Cipielewski, 2002 that stated “Similarly, the use of Accelerated Reader does not necessarily lead to long-term increases in reading in older children despite short-term gains in book reading experienced in the lower grades”.  The finding went on to say “In particular, seventh grade students who had been exposed to Accelerated Reader in fifth grade did not have a greater breadth of knowledge of book titles (as a proxy for print exposure) than children who had not used a reading management program in fifth grade” (Hansen, Collins & Warschauer, pages 66-67).

Very interesting!   I was not surprised since I also have a son who seems to fit into this research finding.   My son is three years older than my daughter.  When he was in Grade 7, my daughter was in Grade 4, the year that A/R was implemented at their school.    Initially he seems okay with the A/R idea.  His teacher was encouraging too with instructional scaffolding and teacher/student conferences.  However, by Grade 8 he began to rebel (his English teacher left the school) and he said he did not like the fact that someone (the school librarian)  and the A/R computer program  was assessing his reading ability, and making him take tests to prove he read certain approved books and received a passing score.

Over time, he was not motivated to read the AR books assigned to his reading level. He would goof off in the library.   When he took the comprehension tests he purposely put down wrong answers.  I wondered if peer pressure had something to do with it, especially in Grade 8.    At that time, I was just hoping he would graduate from middle school and get to high school so I did not really evaluate the A/R program and his reading abilities in great detail since he was maintaining his grades between A and Bs. 

Now I wonder if maybe middle school students need something else besides A/R to keep them interested in reading and making strides in reading achievement and comprehension.  I still view A/R as  a supplement to the reading curriculum and in my son’s case, there was a teaching void in  his Grade 8 class without the same English teacher he had in Grade 7.  Has anyone had similar experiences like this with middle school students who are turned off by reading all of a sudden, or have been pushed through the system and still need to become better readers?  What is out there besides A/R for these students?

Source:
Hansen, L.E., Collins & Warschauer (2009). Reading Management Programs: A Review of the Research.  Journal of Literacy and Technology, Volume 10, Number 3, 54-76

Concept sorts are great tool for ELL students

I really enjoyed Eve and Stephanie’s article discussions on 10/27.  I found myself rethinking about Eve’s first question after class because I have been a substitute teacher for ELL students recently.  Eve’s question was:  How can early childhood educators enhance comprehension learning for ELL students?  My thoughts focused on word sorts.  I found some research to support this thought: “Word sorts are effective for English learners because students build skills to understand how English differs from their native language, and they develop knowledge to help them predict meaning through spellings” (Bear Helman, Invernizzi & Templeton 2007).

The three basic types of sorts that “reflect the three layers of English orthography” are sound, pattern and meaning and there are variations of these sorts that students can perform by themselves, with a partner or under teacher direction (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2008).

Sound sorts using pictures are great for ELLS to develop phonological awareness and teach phonics.   Word sorts are also effective to draw attention to sound and help beginning spellers identify spelling patterns.  With pattern sorts students use the printed forms of words to sort by group of letters or letter sequences and meaning sorts are also a critical component.  The two major types of meaning sorts are concept sorts and meaning sorts related to spelling (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2008).

After reading about the role of word sorting and the types of sorts presented in Bear’s 2008 book, I think that concept sorts tie in perfectly with Eve’s 10/27 class discussion on compare-contrast teaching strategies.  Concept sorts can be used throughout the curriculum in an interdisciplinary fashion.  They are good for all ages and stages of word knowledge and in all content areas, not just literacy units.  The possibilities seem endless when thinking about math terms, science concepts, and social studies vocabulary words in K-3 curriculums. In addition, concept sorts help with assessing and building background knowledge – one of Eve’s reflection points to help ELLs make connections to content.  ELLs tend to know very little English terms when they enter Kindergarten  and if they can do concept picture sorts that utilize compare-contrast exercises then ELLs are starting to expand their vocabulary.  One of the book’s examples was sorting pictures of animals into various categories and then contrasting them with pictures of flowers, or fruits and vegetables – all examples of plants (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2008).

Sources:

Bear, D.R., Helman, L., Invernizzi, M., & Templeton, S.R. (2007).  Words their way with English learners: Word study for spelling, phonics, and vocabulary instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S. R., Johnston, F., (2008) Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Thinking outside the box

Thinking outside the box is a cliché we have all heard in recent years in various work environments.  It definitely applies to teachers and parents, as well. This past week I was a substitute teacher for an elementary school’s Head Start program for 3 year olds.   Thirteen out of fifteen students were Hispanic and throughout the day most of the children spoke Spanish to me and the para-educator.  Since this is the second month of preschool for these children they are still learning daily routines.  I was interested to learn there are obvious goals for math and language arts and a lot of encouragement from the teachers for the children to listen, see, and speak  English as much as possible.   The math curriculum involves sorting things by size, shape and color and counting to five.  The language arts curriculum relates to oral language development, speaking English and learning manners, basic concepts of print related their names, plus labels and signs in the classrooms, acquiring and applying new vocabulary and the literacy learning process.  This last aspect, the literacy learning process involves each student’s ability to listen and respond to various books and poems, their request to have books read to them, and their ability to choose to look at books and pretend to read when instructed by the teacher.  The literacy unit so far has been about home, fall and the change of the seasons.  The children are starting to sing familiar songs, (such as “Old MacDonald had a Farm”), listen to stories (about pumpkins, apples, and farm animals) and participate in daily learning centers. 

Communication with parents is very important for all the students in this predominantly Hispanic community.  Each day the teacher sends home a folder that holds important papers written in English and Spanish.  The teacher also sends home a monthly newsletter written in English and Spanish to communicate what the children are learning throughout the month and student/parent reminders.  In addition, the teacher requires each student take a book home each night for reading at home.  Each day after the children arrive, they unpack, and take the book from their backpacks and return it to either the English or Spanish book bin. Then each student pick outs another book to take home.  The kids seem to enjoy bringing the books home and it is becoming part of their daily routine at school.  Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak (2008) state that while “stories, or narratives, are important and perhaps the main entry point for reading at home”, teachers need to embrace a “wider palette of materials that count as texts for reading” and “help parents see that these other types of materials are legitimate forms of reading” (page 582).  Rasinski and Padak highlight environmental print, lists, rhymes, poems, songs, newspapers, magazines, mail, and technology.  They recommend that teachers send this list home with suggestions for reading the mail, singing songs, developing lists, etc. and encourage parents to use some of these alternative texts on a daily basis with their children.  Making it part of their daily routine at home will have it become a normal part of family life.  I definitely agree and think these suggestions from Razinski and Padak would be very helpful to parents of ESL students in Head Start programs and other preschool classes, as well.

Source:

Rasinski. T., & Padak, N. (2008) Beyond Stories.  The Reading Teacher, 61, 582-584.

Teacher Interruptions During Read Alouds

One of the questions I’ve had this week is why do some students struggle to become fluent readers?  Tompkins provides a detailed list of characteristics that are usually exhibited by dysfluent readers such as “students who guess at words based on beginning sounds, students who don’t remember a word the second or third time it is used in a passage and students who point at words as they read” (page 208).  The list goes beyond these three examples and it seems exhaustive, however, Tomkins goes on to conclude “there’s no single common problem, some have difficulty decoding words, whereas others read very slowly or in a monotone, ignoring phrasing and punctuation cues” (page 209).

 I still wonder why some kids are fluent readers sooner than others.  Another researcher named Allington provides three reasons why: 1) students regularly read books that are too difficult, 2) students actually read very little and 3) “teachers frequently ask struggling readers to read aloud and then immediately interrupt them when they misread a word rather than giving them time to notice and correct their error” (Tompkins, page 209).  I can relate to all three of these reasons.  Sometimes   students will pick up and “read” a more difficult book to make it appear they are further ahead than they really are due to peer pressure and internal feelings of inadequacy. Other struggling readers “pretend” to read, but are just going through the motions because they haven’t had enough exposure to reading aloud due to socioeconomic conditions such as the inability to acquire proper reading  materials.  In addition, ESL students  are generally not exposed to various types of literature and are not read to on a daily basis because their parents do not speak English at home.

 Allington’s third reason “teacher interruption” was a surprise to me but the more I thought about it, I realized I have corrected students who have misread a word during read alouds during my substitute teaching experiences.  I did not think of what I was doing as an interruption, but I guess it could be construed that way.  Going forward I will try to provide positive feedback before and after read alouds and quickly try to grasp each student’s instructional reading needs whether they are fluent readers, to struggling readers, ESL readers, etc.   I can do this by making inferences from teacher notes, delineation of groups for certain exercises, interactions with students during centers and small group discussions.

Sources:

Allington, R. L. (2009).  What really matters in fluency: Research-based best practices across the curriculum.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson.

Tompkins, Gail E. (2010). Literacy for the 21^st century.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Reading Skills vs. Strategies - What's the Difference?

After our Wed. 10/6 class discussion on reading comprehension and the need for teachers to understand how to deepen student comprehension skills and strategies in a unified manner, I asked myself what is the difference in meaning between skills and strategies?    I found an article by Afflerbach, Pearson & Paris (2008) which provided clarification. The authors say “skill is associated with the proficiency of a complex act and strategy is associated with a conscious and systematic plan” (page 365). 

The authors feel there are three sources of confusion when asked what’s the difference between reading skills vs. strategies:  1) diverse historical uses 2) inadequate definitions and 3) inconsistent use in classroom instruction, books and in formal documents.  For example, in education circles, the word skills has been used for about 100 years and the word strategies became prevalent in the 1960s. Furthermore, Afflerbach, Pearson & Paris state “strategies entered everyday practice in classrooms when they because a part of basal instruction in the early-mid 1990s.  The authors also believe that many people in the educational process (policy makers, curriculum developers, administrators, test makers and teachers) use the two terms inconsistently and rarely define and understand the terms.  Some of the examples provided when educators sited their definitions to the authors were “Skills make up strategies” or “Strategies lead to skills” and “Skill is the destination, Strategy is the journey” (page 365).  These anecdotal definitions really confused me and the authors state there is confusion in the educational system and the authors believe that the confusion needs to be resolved “because how we conceptualize and define reading skills and reading strategies has important implications for reading practices and reading policies” (page 364).

 The authors really tried to clarify the difference in their article: “Reading skills are motivated by goals of fluency, effortlessness and accuracy, they give rise to pride in ability not effort.  Reading strategies are motivated by control, good decision making, and adaptability; they reinforce self-efficacy based on both ability and effort” (page 370).  I got a lot of background information when I read this article, but it was something I needed to understand better.  There is a definite need to teach reading skills and strategies in an explicit fashion and what might work for many children as far as practicing basic skills for letter recognition may not work for struggling readers who really need to be first taught specific strategies for visual and auditory distinctions. This topic on reading skills vs. strategies was a definite eye-opener for me.

Source:

Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P.D., & Paris, S. G. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills and strategies.  The Reading Teacher, 61, 364-373.

20 Minutes of Learning

I was a substitute teacher in a pre-k classroom this week and since it was a half-day of school,  only the morning class of 22 was in attendance.  There was one 20-minute lesson by an ESOL teacher planned and the rest of the time was allocated to PE, lunch and playtime.  It was interesting to see how the ESOL teacher allocated her 20 minutes of time.  The whole group sat on the carpet and watched the teacher show various school supplies – pencil, eraser, stapler, marker, tape dispenser and glue.  As she showed the items, she sang a repetitive sing-a-long phrase and the kids repeated the phrase with her.  Then the children broke into 3 small groups.  I led one group by showing pictures of the six school supplies and a laminated card with the associated word typed out in big letters. We went over the picture, and matched the word card to it.  The kids passed the card and picture around, repeated the associated word after me and we highlighted the first letter of each word such as p for pencil, e for eraser, etc.

I wondered if 20 minutes of learning was enough for this pre-k class of mostly Hispanic students?  After the morning greeting on the rug, the students went to PE. Upon their return, the ESOL lesson occurred, then the class chose various play centers for an independent learning time of 20 minutes.  After that it took time to wash everyone’s hands before lunch, serve lunch, eat lunch and then pack up and go.  It seemed like the para-educator and I spent most of our time getting the students to the next step in their daily routine. It was hurry up, go to PE, hurry up for ESOL, play – go play, then wash your hands, eat, and good-bye.

 I began to wonder how does this teacher organize her days and juggle the learning requirements for 22 students in the morning, and 23 new students in the afternoon. Ellen Blackburn Karelitz (1993),  states that time management can be very challenging for teachers  because there are so many things to do and sometimes the period of time for instruction is choppy and doesn’t have a natural flow or sequence to it.  Karelitz said she uses the breaks in the day for snack, lunch, recess and specials – art, music, PE to signal changes in focus or momentum.  Karelitz also says it is easy to get into the habit of trying to cover the curriculum at the expense of open-ended time for students to immerse themselves in a project or be reflective during a discussion. Karelitz said her time management skills developed through trial and error, observing other teachers and a lot of study, reflection and evaluation.  She also used her intuition many times (pages 23-24).

I am glad to hear that time management skills are sometimes learned by trial and error and intuition.  After being in the pre-k class for ½ day session, I can see that managing time is key.  I have a better understanding that teachers and students are teaching and learning from each other every day even at the pre-k level and that it is important to manage the flow of time from one subject or activity to another.  At the pre-k level, I’ve learned that play time is still paramount and most of the learning does occur during the time for activity centers.   

Source: 

Karelitz, Ellen Blackburn. 1993.  The Author’s Chair and Beyond. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann