AR has become a major issue at our school. First of all the teachers at our school do not all treat AR equally. Some don't really use it at all and some use it for up to 90% of the reading grade. The other issue is: In CA we do the Governors Challenge and set a goal to read a certain number of pages for the year (the entire school). We surpassed that goal again this year but due to budget cuts in the state instead of receiving our $5000 check the school (kids) get a plaque. Parent Club supports a lot of other things are not able to immediately step in to support AR 100%.

My son is finshing 3rd grade. He has a fairly high reading level and is a great reader. However, he has not taked ONE AR test this trimester (year round school). They are required to take at least one per week as part of their reading grade. Part of our problem is the fact that the library doesn't have much in his reading level that is of interest to boys. He loves Goose Bumps but they are too low for him now. We went thru every book in the house last week (apporx. 100) and only three of them were in his reading level AND on the AR list. Our school puts the AR list on our website. So AR is actually discouraging my son from reading. We are getting a new principal next month and he came to our last meeting. He is looking at the option of making AR 0% of the reading grade for the next school year. The program he used at his old school had three tests for each book so the kids could re-take it instead of just getting a zero for all of their hard work.

Our AR store has not been a great incentive. Candy bars, ice cream, pizza and a movie pass. We are looking at changing this to resemble a school store so the kids can use their points to purchase hilighters, pens, folders, erasers, etc...the things that they spend their money on at the book fair instead of books.

Anyway..............sorry this is so long but we just had our meeting this week and it was still fresh. Almost every parent on our board of 12 had a complaint of some kind regarding AR.

We just started AM this year so we don't really know yet.

Pam

We've used AR for the last 2 years and will be introducint AM this fall. I just came from a Parent leadership conference and we had the oppertunity to get on our states web site to view our schools progress report. (we're a K-5 elem.) This was very interesting! Our Eng/Lit scores on the ISTEP (only give to 3rd grade 6,8 & 10) we're higher than our math scores. Based on that data I really feel that these students who have had the AR program during their 1st & 2nd grade years benifited. We are anticipating that Math scores will go up too the next time they test (6th grade). In the mean time we'll be able to look at the results from next fall's testing and gage if a differnce in being made.

Our PTO doesn't fund this program. We've go an A+ principal who has located funds elsewhere and came to PTO just to inform & excite us about the program. Of course PTO will assist if needed..."it's for the students!"

FYI: Our school corp is a pilot program for "Project Leadership" a grant program that gets parents involved in improving academic output. We've been very fortunate that our system does well and continues to raise the bar! Now we're tackeling the task of involving & educating the parents and empowering them to get the most from the education being provided. I highly recommend this program if avaliable. We will recieve a $500 grant to get our "Closing the Gap" program off the ground this school year. Check 'em out at www.cipl.org

Kelly

[ 06-18-2003: Message edited by: First Lady ]</p>

We run the AR program a little differently. The teacher and student sit down and set a goal based on the students STAR reading level and the students abilities. Every week a report is printed out for the parents to see and it states at the bottom of the page where they percentage wise to the goal that was set. All kids can reach 100% and no other student knows the point goal for anyone else, unless they care to share. Each class has a chart showing how the students are progressing according to their goals. A slower reader can set a goal of 20 points for the year and still get on the wall. While an advanced reader might have a goal of 100 points. The first kid might be a 15 points and the second at 75 and both at on the wall at 75%.
AR is a supplemental reading program, we do not reward our kids for how many points they get.

By the way, I have two boys, one is an advanced reader and the other is not. It has worked out great for both of them, they both take pride in reaching 100% of their goal.

I have been very interested in all the comments on AR and AM ( Accelerator Reader and Accelerator Math) since my first post in March. I was very excited to attend the presentation from Renaissance Learning about the incentives that the AR program brought to reading. The school formed a staff and parent committee and got busy applying for grant money that Renaissance Learning helped use find. Sell us the product and help get us the money should have been a key point! After money was "found" and the PTO bought on at over $5,000.00 for the first year, the staff support disappeared . The program fell to a parent committee to hold AR Shopping days for children to spend their points. We started with small toys, pencils, and novelty items hoping to move to larger awards as the points accumulated. As the parent in charge of the purchasing and the volunteer schedule for each shopping day I began to see the kids who read already did well and earned points but the children who were not readers or from homes of readers, they did not have points to spend. They may have earned less than a full point and could not spend what they had earned. Information was not going home about titles of books, reading levels or when and how the children could test. Some teachers made points and tests part of the reading grade when the program had clearly been explained at the start as extra incentive and extra credit. Some teachers allowed children to write reports rather than take the tests and still earn the same points. Suddenly we were all over the place with "The rules' and no staff stepped up to be in charge. It seemed to try to fall to the Media Center but she would not have it. Soon the Am Accelerator Math program showed up with none of the presentation and fan fare that came with the AR. Accelerator Math is supposed to be a way for children to work at their own level to increase math skills. Sounds great until you find that the children at first grade are working problems, getting answers and then transferring the A,B,C answer to a universal scantron form. The actual work sheet where the problems are solved is never seen by the teacher, the children have access to the scanner so they can grade their own work and the grade pops into the teacher's data base. Great till you realize that the grade is based off of scanning not their math work. My son had a very hard time with the hand eye work needed to transfer the answer to the scan tron, if he got off a line he got problems wrong. He got so he believed he could not do the math when in reality he could not scan, which of course was not a skill that had been taught in preparation for this program.
I feel that in elementary levels the process of the math is the key, showing the tick marks, seeing the carry over, drawing the lines of symmetry. It should be more about the process than the correct scan tron answer. This program that was to be extras became his class room grade and the teacher would not work with him to improve the scanning transfer issue. I was spending time in his room to help him learn to use a ruler to line up answers with the scan tron and such, he was not the only child with this problem but parents were not aware. Wrong was wrong. Then there began to be problems actually with the software when it would grade wrong, When I would point this out to staff I was told, oh that means we need to run the Disk Doctor. This would be the only time a correction was made to my son's grade. Meetings with the principle and curriculum staff reassured me that the program was of benefit and an extra but none seemed to see that 30 minutes a day each day at school was too much time to spend on scanning at second grade. My son is now finishing 3rd grade and we are struggling with multiplication. I feel his self esteem in math was injured by the AM program. He is involved with Kumon programs to over come the damage caused by AM and how our staff used the program. I have tried to research this Renaissance Learning but have found no independent testing supporting their claims. I believe it is a dangerous program when not monitored very closely. They sell the product and help you get the money, any school would easily fall into the a trap. The data base is very helpful to the teacher to simply run a report to get a grade and status for a student which would seem that it would open more time to actually teach but that is not how it has worked in my experience. I regret the time my son has been involved in this program and I further regret the money our PTO put into these programs, well over $12,000.00 in the past three years, and that does not include the grant money we received. I went in to the program well educated I thought. I supported it to the community and now have hurt my own child&#8217;s math learning in the process. I hope others will proceed slowly with this program. I think it could be good but it needs allot of attention from parents.

I have been very interested in all the comments on Ar and Am ( Accelerator Reader and Accelerator Math) since my first post in March. I was very excited to attend the presentation from Renassance Learning about the incentives that the AR program brought to reading. The school formed a staff and parent commentii and got busy applying for grant money that Renassance Learning helped use find. Sell us the product and help get us the money should have been a key point! After money was "found" and the PTO bought on at over $5,000.00 for the first year, the staff support disapeared. The program feel to a parent commenty to hold AR Shopping days for children to spend their points. We started with small toys, pencils, novelty items hoping to move to larger awards as the points accumulated. As the parent in charge of the purchasing and the volunteer schedule for each shopping day I began to see the kids who erad already did well and earned points but the children who were not readers or from homes of readers, they did not have points to spend. They mayhave earned less than a full point and couldnot spend what they had earned. Information was not going home about titles of books, reading levels or when and how the children could test. Some teachers made points and tests part of the reading grade when the program had clearly been explained at the as extra incentive and extra credit. Some teachers allowed children to write reports rather than take the tests and still earn the same points. Suddenly we were all over the place with "The rules' and staff stepped up to be incharge. It seem to try to fall to the Media Center but she would not have it.

This year our school did something that was highly received. The 1st & 2nd graders that reached their yearly goal spent the night at school!! Our spanish club from our local highschool come over and entertained them with making cool things, played games and had snacks. They brought their t-shirt and shorts to sleep in and lights out at 10:30. They slept in 4 rooms (1st grade girls, 1st grade boys, 2nd grade girls and 2nd grade boys) and the teachers slept in the hall between the rooms expecting to respond to cries. Everyone (50 of them) enjoyed themselves and no one called home in the middel of the night. The children that didn't reach their goal are already talking about reaching it next year. We are very BIG on AR and its a great incentive.!!