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This is the first time I've tried to do a HIT so I hope this comes
through okay. Thank you for your responses so far. I'm leaning toward
Reading Counts because of the greater depth of test questions which fit
what our teachers expect.
y ninth grade reading teacher has tried the AR program that the
seventh grade uses, and has not been pleased. He feels that the
questions are too picky - he can't even answer some of them.
The details that the questions are made from are sometimes rather
obscure.
We have AR at my school and have been using it for 3 years. The tests
require quite a bit of specific knowledge of the books. One student
wanted
to retake a test because he didn't realize he'd have to know that much
about
the book! You cannot have read the book a few years ago and still pass
the
test -- I had one student try that just last week.... In terms of
content
and offensiveness, this is a choice issue. If a student is offended by
the
language or content, then the student can choose to read another book.
We
haven't had a problem with this in the time we've been using AR.
Nancy,
I make up a reading list for each one of the grade levels, the
students decide on which books they want to read. I've done this for
all
my English classes 6-12. We use Reading Counts because I can decide how
many questions on each test out of a bank of 30 questions. At present
we
have it set up that the student must pass 8 out of 10 questions. If I
can
answer any other questions, please let me know
We use RC. We like it. 30 four part multiple choice questions cover the
content. We've neverhad a concern about language or content. Of
course,
they check out library books, and I screen those fairly reliably: no
Phrah
book of the month selections!
Reading Counts is far superior to AR in its quality of tests. I've used
Reading Counts for
High School for the last three years and before that for 15 years
(called Electronic Bookshelf)
in elementary schools. My present district uses AR in primary and
elementary. RC in jr. high
and high school.
One telling point is this: an AR test on a book--any book from
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What
do You see? to War and Peace--is 10 questions total. That may be okay
for Brown Bear, but for
high school books, no. RC has a bank of 30 top-quality questions for
each title. With AR
every student sees the same 10 questions for every test on a title. With
RC NO student ever
sees the same test on any title. There are theoretically over 3,000
tests available on every
title with RC.
The difference in quality of questions is obvious also.
Cheating is virtually non-existant in RC and a constant problem in
AR.
I've watched students take tests in RC for so many years. It is
downright spooky how the
tests measure a student's reading effort. Invariably if they read a
little, they will make a
little grade, less than 40. If they read about half the book, they'll
make around 50. If they
read most of the book, they'll make 80 or less. If they read all the
book, they'll nearly
always make 100 or 90. It is the coolest thing to see effort rewarded
and lack of effort so
plainly obvious to the students.
About the quality of books. Since RC is writing a much more
sophisticated test, they
choose only top-quality literature. Since AR can whip out 10-question
tests by the gross, they
slap a test on anything and everything.
As for levels: I use the Follett catalog to decide which books are
assigned which grade
level. Follett labels its books RR (9th grade), YA (10th grade), YA/AD
(11th grade), and AD
(12th grade). Occasionally I adjust up or down based on the levels in
the MARC record of the
individual books. Over the years, this leveling system has served me
well to ensure a range of
books for each grade level--something for everyone's levels and
interests.
I have 1000 books in our RC program, so I've not read many of them.
I know about many of
them from talking to the students, reading reviews, and cataloging
them. Before each RC
assignment I like to go to the classrooms and get the students to talk
about good books. Since
all our teachers assign an RC book every three weeks, I hear a lot about
a lot of good
books--and a few not-so-good also.
I haven't told you half the good stuff about RC or the bad stuff
about AR. I hope you and
your teachers choose RC, but AR will be better than nothing. At least
the students will get to
choose what to read--a huge improvement over assign-the-same for
everyone.
---
Donna Cook, Nacogdoches, Texas :
Teacher Librarian Central High;
District Coordinator, Central ISD;
Library Consultant, Douglass ISD;
"Minister of Information" First Baptist Church.
donnacook@lycos.com
936-853-9345 (work)
936-569-2426 (home)
Great question! Our English teachers (of which I was one until last
year)
average 175 students per day. The paper work for grading book reviews
is
staggering, so many do not assign outside reading. PLEASE POST A HIT ON
YOUR FINDINGS.
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