Editor's note: After reading the following article in the Authors Guild Bulletin, I immediately thought of the librarians, teachers, and parents—and especially authors—who frequently have to consider the issues presented by Deborah Lightfoot. I'm so pleased that Deborah has given me permission to run the piece, which first ran in the SCBWI Bulletin, in its entirety here.
Get Your Books AR Listed
© 2007 by Deborah J. Lightfoot
(This article appeared originally in the September–October
2006 SCBWI Bulletin. Used here by permission of the author. All rights reserved.)
“I bought this book for my daughter,
but since it wasn’t on the AR book list at school, she never got around to
reading it.”
Magyk: Septimus Heap, Book One,
by Angie Sage, was the book not read. An online reviewer posted that comment in
2005, shortly after Magyk's publication.
The reviewer’s remark troubled me.
It was the second time I had heard the mysterious “AR book list” blamed for a
young reader’s rejection of a book.
The first instance involved work of
my own. While visiting a clutch of elementary schools, I asked whether their
libraries had (or would acquire) my book Trail Fever, a biography for
readers 9 and up. It complements fourth-grade history studies—one of the main
reasons I wrote it.
“I’ll check,” said the librarian.
Then, with an apologetic shake of her head: “It’s not on the AR list, so we
won’t buy it for our library. The students don’t read books that aren’t AR
books.” She added: “A lot of authors don’t know that.”
Being among the ignorant, I set out
to uncover the all-powerful AR list. “AR,” I learned, is Accelerated Reader, a
computer-based system for tracking reading in schools. It’s owned by
Renaissance Learning, a company that sells assessment and monitoring programs
for pre-K through 12th grade.
The company calls AR “reading
management software.” Under the program, a student reads a book, then sits down
at a computer to take a quiz about it. Correct answers earn points that the
student redeems for rewards or prizes such as pencils, pizzas, candy bars,
T-shirts, or special privileges.
AR’s web site (www.renlearn.com/ar/)
says it offers 100,000 quizzes on library books and textbooks. Many thousands
of books, however—classics and new titles—are not “AR books.” And there’s the
rub. Students don’t earn points for reading non-AR books. They are motivated to
reject the non-listed, thus passing up books they shouldn’t miss.
The AR program may further restrict
a child’s reading through its system of awarding points. Chapter books earn
more points than picture books; long novels get you oodles of points. The
harder the book, the more points. To build their totals, students may choose
books to read solely because of the number of points the selection is
worth—never mind whether it’s the right book or even a readable book for that
child.
AR has its critics. At
www.frankserafini.com, Dr. Frank Serafini of the University of Nevada–Las Vegas argues against reading as an act “reduced
to a thing students do to collect points.” He asks: “Why should we allow a
commercial program to decide what books we should purchase for our schools?”
Serafini worries about the effect on publishers: “My biggest fear is that AR
will influence publishers’ decisions and limit the choices available for students.”
On the other side, Jim Trelease,
author of The Read-Aloud Handbook (www.trelease-on-reading.com), says:
“I hear ten times more positives than negatives” about reading incentive
programs. Among the positives, he cites these: “Students read a significantly
larger number of books at all levels as a result of incentives,” and “With the
increase in usage and demand, the library now contains a larger and newer book
collection.”
With 60,000 schools—half the K–12
schools in the country—embracing
AR, writers may be more inclined to participate now and take sides later. I’m
favoring the Serafini camp. “Children end up rushing through books,” he warns,
“neglecting the aesthetic experience of reading, to get to the computer test to
score points.” Agree though I do, I e-mailed Renaissance Learning
([email protected]) to ask how to get my book onto their list.
They instructed me to send two
copies to the Title Selection Coordinator, Renaissance Learning, Inc., P.O. Box 8036, Wisconsin
Rapids, WI 54494,
with a cover letter describing the book’s awards, positive reviews, and
distribution (whether it is available through major school library suppliers).
I complied, and after six months Trail
Fever got its very own AR quiz, No. 102632. I checked the list for Magyk,
too, and found that AR has caught up with the book’s popularity: Magyk
is quiz No. 86518. Because Magyk has ten times more words than my brief
chapter book, it awards readers an attractive 18 points, against a mere 2 for Trail
Fever. (The Hello, Goodbye Window, like most picture books, rates
half a point, and near the other end of the scale Moby Dick gets you a
whopping 42 credits. The curious may search for their own titles at
www.renlearn.com/store/quiz_home.asp.)
Will the daughter read Magyk,
I wonder, now that her efforts will earn her pencils and candy? Can my easy
two-point book compete with the more lucrative mega-tomes? Most of all, I
wonder, whatever happened to “Reading is its own reward”?
*****
Deborah J. Lightfoot is the author of three books of history and biography, including Trail
Fever (by D.J. Lightfoot) and The LH7 Ranch (under the byline
Deborah Lightfoot Sizemore). She’s been a member of the Authors Guild since
1995 and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
(SCBWI) for about as long. Her first young-adult novel, Waterspell, is
now out with her agent. It’s long enough to score piles of AR points. Follow
its fate at http://www.djlightfoot.com/.
Go, Dog, Go! An easy book, right? It's fun—that's for sure. But if you're a first-grader working hard to read at grade level, Go, Dog, Go! is a real challenge. Picture clues abound: big dog and little dog clearly refer to illustrations of the same. But the words, they can trip you up. To read P.D. Eastman's classic, you'll need to distinguish between tree, three, the, and there; out, of, on, in, and one; and go, going, to, and do. You'll have to recognize that the -ay in play ("Play, dogs, play!") makes a long a sound. For that matter, you'll have to know what a long a is. And forget said; at least it doesn't show up in this book. The sight word said can really throw a person for a loop. Sight words. The only thing to do is to memorize them.