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Hello! What a difference a day makes! I have learned so much about AR management from you helpful folks as well as staff in my district that my head is swimming. Before I get to the HIT I want to clarify that in the process of requesting new information, it was not my intent to criticize the use of AR in my district or anywhere else. I am only trying to learn how it fits into the big picture. In an effort to frame my questions in a way that made sense, I oversimplified some of the facts, which only served to highlight how little I understood about AR. AR does not drive collection development at all in our libraries, nor does it take a great deal of anyone's time. Nor is the cost prohibitive relative to other resources we purchase. It is just one of many resources we could make better use of, especially if we add it to the long list of strategies and resources we are working towards providing training for. I think we, as a district, are fortunate that teachers can utilize this as they see fit rather than feel pressured to implement it. Here are some of the helpful comments I received: 1) What I have been trying to do is have an AR trainer come to train my staff, because we misuse it as well. My principal is willing, but we can't ever seem to get a date picked. AR will send trainers to you. It sounds like that may be a bit pricey for you. There might be some teacher or media specialist in your area who has taken training and can do an in-service for your teachers. How do the teachers feel about it? If they aren't using it, you might want to consider other options. Our primary teachers just had an in-service about a product called Reader's Toolkit. It is more of a group activity, but it gets the students to do some critical thinking, make connections and predictions, and so on. We really like it. 2) I don't see the problem. This is the way we use at our high school. It has slowly but steadily caught on and we have tripled our circulation in the past 5 years. If it ain't broke why mess with it, in my humble opinion. I espeically don't like getting principals involved. That has killed it at our elementary where it was starting to build until the new princicpal got involved. 3) Up until this year the principal chaired an AR committee (composed of a reading teacher, 3 classroom teachers and the librarian). Now the supervisor of the elementary reading department is in charge of AR. This year we also switched from purchasing individual tests to buying a district wide license that lets us access all of the AR tests that Renaissance Learning has. I believe this runs $3.00 or $4.00 per student that the district plans to use the program. It costs more than the $300 annual licensing fee we paid before, but we don't have to keep buying tests and it means that the students have an enormous range of books available to them. I don't get complaints any more that I don't have AR tests for the books they want to read or that there are insufficient tests at a particular reading level. The parents and students are much happier. The students just go to our district web page to link to the RenLearn website and can take tests from home or just check to see if a book is an AR book and what its reading level and point value is. I hope this helps. 4) We use Reading Counts in our school, but I think the principle is the same. RC or AR can be used in many ways, but we have chosen to use it as a voluntary program, which sounds like what you are doing. I administer the program through the library, and am in charge of it. Students here can read books independently, and choose to take quizzes on them. The computers collate the points, and we offer prizes at various point levels to encourage student use. We fund the entire program, quizzes, prizes, some books, and sometimes even computers, with our boxtops money. The program doesn't drive my book purchases, but it does impact my weeding, as I am reluctant to throw away books that have quizzes in the program. Teachers are free to incorporate the program into their classroom. Some do, some don't. The system seems to work for us. Hope this helps, 5) We have used AR in Gr. 2-5 for several years, and 2-7 the last 2 years. We are a very small rural district (1 bldg., 450 students k-12). As the LMS I do the administration of AR. Yes, using AR will definitely impact circ. and readership. And, we all know that the more students read, the better they become at reading. As with any program, there are drawbacks and advantages. At this point I am beginning to weed some books that I have AR quizzes for. The ultimate driving force is whether or not the books are being read. With over 4000 quizzes, I no longer worry about having enough AR books for our students. Simply checking circ and checking usage of the quizzes will quickly tell whether or not a book should be kept. For instance, I'll keep Snow Treasure because it circulates and is being quizzed. Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series will go because the kids do not read them and haven't for about 8-10 years. My collection development approach is to purchase materials according to positive reviews, to support the curriculum, and to reflect the interests of our students. Then, after making my purchasing decision, I look at which books have an AR quiz and purchase quizzes for those. Because there are now so many quizzes available I find that I can purchase quizzes for over 90% of the fiction I purchase, and then add more quizzes the following year for things that were so recently published that no quiz was available. I also find I can purchase plenty of non-fiction quizzes for new books as well. I don't seem to spend a terrific amount of time on AR. It's just one more thing that I do to get students reading. Perhaps the program could be better utilized, but our students don't seem to have a problem in adjusting in different uses of the program from grade to grade. After all each teacher is unique and has his or her own teaching style. You might want to check into the training that Renaissance Learning offers. 6) AR was not designed to be used as a guide to purchase books in the library. It was also not designed to be used as a grade. AR is a motivational tool. Plan and simple. I also agree that it would be very beneficial if your school had one set of rules and/or requirements to using AR. This helps the students and parents know what to expect. To have each teacher make their own can lead to confusion and also make a huge headache for the person in charge of AR. I am in charge of the AR program in our highschool (and RC at the K-8 level). We treat AR very simple. At the high school, all students have a goal of 25 points per nine-weeks. There is no limit on what books they can read, nor do the teacher's care about reading level ect. All that is required is 25 points. Over half of the students will get all of their points after reading just two books. If they have their 25 points, they are free to read anything else they want during their silent-sustained reading such as magazines, newspapers, books from home, even textbook chapters. They will get extra points from their english teachers if they go over their 25 points but most students don't do this. They would rather have the freedom to read and not worry about taking a test later on. At the middle school level, the students there have a requirement to pass 3 Reading Counts test each nine-weeks. However, I think they are going to go with points like at the high school next year. (they are currently talking about 15 points per nine-weeks). At the elementary level, the students have to pass a certain number of test according to their grade. Grades 1-3 have a goal of 25 test per SEMESTER (about 12 a nine-weeks). Grades 4-5 have a goal of 5 a nine-weeks. There are even some teachers who do not like Reading Counts and so do not push it. They would rather have book reports, literacy circles, and reading logs. For those teachers, they opt out of the program and we really don't worry too much about them. (on a side note, it seems to me that my biggest readers for the library come from the teachers who use literacy circles). I find that it usually doesn't take up that much time to maintain the AR or RC program in all of the libraries (I am the only certified librarian for the 5 schools). I probably spend a total of an hour a week on running all of these programs. Some weeks, more and some weeks, a lot less. If I have a book that needs to be weeded and it has an AR or RC test, I still weed the book. When I purchase new books, I try to buy the test along with the books. I do this because I never want to limit a student from reading a book just because it doesn't have a test. I have a collection development policy that I follow and there is no mention of AR or RC anywhere on it. Anyway, I hope this helps. It sure works for us 7) My school district had 1 person in charge of the program. This is the way AR wants it. I have been to 2 national conferences of theirs--one in Nashville and the other in Las Vegas. One person administers the program. The computer lab and classrooms are testing facilities. The library did not put the program on. I did well to stay up with the book shelving. If this is going to be done, it needs to be uniform. My school had a competition for points, but that's not the way to do it. Each teacher is to set goals with each of her/his students and sign the reading log as they finish books and meet their reading goals. There is management software for the library called AR Book Guide. You can print reading lists and manage your books and quizzes. There is even software that will evaluate your collection and tell you which books you have that need tests, which tests need books, etc. If your district is going to do AR, do not weed those books. If they are in need of weeding, replace the copies. Those tests are expensive. AR drove my entire K-8 collection. The HS attempted it, but quickly abandoned the program. 8) We use AR District wide- 28 buildings. It's gets heavy use at Elementary, moderate use at MS, and very little at HS. This is a District supported program AR and STAR (tool for reading level)- they purchase upgrades, our tech department keeps it running, teachers have had training, and we contract with Advantage Learning for Help support. You are correct- you don't want to be in charge. At our school the PTA provides funding for tests, I have a teacher that "loves" AR and she does the ordering of tests. I load the tests into the Data base, but that's about it. I know the program well, but AR would take too much time for me. I spend my energy "training" teachers and then they are on there own. Our Principal is a big supporter of AR. If this weren't the case I could see the program being run differently in each classroom. So we do have school wide standards and district wide standards. For some reason AR is a very emotional issue and they are attached to it like glue. Talking about "change" might be more than one could bear. AR does drive many of our purchasing decisions, but not exclusively- if I need something that's not AR then we purchase. I like it because- 1. I do very little in keeping it going and 2. the PTA likes spending money on AR books. 9) Our school has people other than myself in charge of AR. At my campus, it is a Language Arts teacher. I know the library aides on the elementary campuses are in charge of it there. I don't know about consistency being a problem. The whole point of AR is to be a reading incentive. I really don't think it matters how the teachers chose to use that. It actually sounds like you have a better program than we do, since the students here are forced to read AR books on certain levels. I would think a situation like yours would be better because it sounds as if the teachers are using it in a way that best serves their class. The first years we had it, the kids were excited, but after 8 years, they grew sick of it. The only ones who are still excited about it are the K-4 kids. 10) Our school has people other than myself in charge of AR. At my campus, it is a Language Arts teacher. I know the library aides on the elementary campuses are in charge of it there. I don't know about consistency being a problem. The whole point of AR is to be a reading incentive. I really don't think it matters how the teachers chose to use that. It actually sounds like you have a better program than we do, since the students here are forced to read AR books on certain levels. I would think a situation like yours would be better because it sounds as if the teachers are using it in a way that best serves their class. 11) I've had lots of experience with AR as a language arts teacher (and with STAR testing). Before we purchased the tests. Now they're all online. This may be something to check into. The format looks a little different, but it still basically works the same. They say there SHOULD be someone in charge to administer it, but any competent teacher can add students, create classes and run reports within the system. Someone just has to set up the privileges. The more teachers have, the less you will have to deal with. Currently at my campus, a JH, there is one ESL teacher who wants to use it. She has her own username/password and has access to it on her computer. It's also set up on 6 student computers for testing. I will have to walk her through it, but it didn't take me long to see how the online version works. Thank you! Susan Waring District Librarian Spencer Van Etten Central Schools 607-589-7140 ext 2229 swaring@svecsd.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. 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