Accelerated Reader

Prior to reading this article about Accelerated Reader, I had no knowledge of what the program was. I attended a private school my whole life and AR was never part of our curriculum so I have never had experience being in the program like many others seem to have been. From what I understand though, it is a program that includes a variety of books and the computerized multiple choice story plot questions that go along with with those certain books. The biggest problem many people seem to have is the limited book choice and the reading restrictions that this places on children who want to read about what they enjoy and have to be told that they can't because basically there is no AR computer quiz to go along with those books. Another problem that I observed from this reading about AR was that it encouraged reading a lot of books quickly and just having to know the basic and literal plot but did not seem to include any emphasis on the quality of the books and or any critical analysis beyond just the plot. Some of the most enjoyable reading I have done in my life is reading that I can really get into the story and expand upon it and think about why something happens or why someone is the way they are rather than just reading it for what its worth. For this reason, I think that AR may have been a really great idea in the beginning but as it has played out, many problems have come to the surface and if school want to continue to use programs like AR they need to address these problems and see what modifications they can make.