This idea was submitted by

Denise Stephenson from Calvary Christian College in Carbrook Queensland

When promoting specific AR books with Years 4, 5 and 6 students involved with the AR program, I link fiction with non-fiction titles e.g. Polar the Titanic Bear with books on the Titanic, Tonkin’s “To the Goldfields” with fiction set in the same era, Crew’s “I Saw/Did Nothing” with books about endangered animals.

The popular AR non-fiction books include biographies, books of strange facts, general interest books especially sport, war stories and natural and man-made disasters.  The My Story fiction series are a great way to introduce the non- fiction books.  Too technical non-fiction is not popular with our AR students as they want to browse these books and not be quizzed on facts.

AR non- fiction picture books used for discussion lessons are displayed on a table with fiction and non-fiction, topic linked from the AR shelves. Topics discussed include Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, Two World Wars, Ancient Egypt, Heroines, The Gold Rush, Science Fiction and Space Travel, Animal stories (Dewey/fictional cat stores).  As I pre-read books, I tag interesting or exciting parts to read extracts and also use audio tapes and YouTube for information or book trailers. Students share books they have enjoyed and interesting facts they have found. New AR titles are promoted in the Library and on handouts which include the picture, title and blurb for each. This sheet is emailed to teaching staff – many use the non-fiction in class and the whole class take the quiz during computer time.

Back in 2003 Dr Lyn Wilkinson from Flinders University presented a keynote address at an education conference in South Australia.  Her keynote, Teachers as Theory Builders, appeared to me an academic storytelling exercise.  The story was underpinned by the things we expect from academics; research, interviews and conclusions.  The end result was a great description of how Accelerated Reader is simply a tool that teachers can use with great effect once they have applied the theory that they inherently possess.

This article makes for great reading.  Since that keynote the article has appear in a few academic journals, but this is the version that I personally prefer.

Teachers as Theory Builders

A few years ago the fabulous Ms Del Merrick the Support Teacher at Rangeville State School in Queensland designed a reading log book for Accelerated Reader.  You can download these PDF’s and print your own Reading Log in a small booklet format.  They look fabulous and have a small set of great reminders for students when they read.

This is the outside cover -

1 – Outside Cover

This is the inside cover, print on the back of the outside cover -

2 – Inside Cover

This is the first page of the inside pages, print one -

3 – First Inside Page

This is the actual log book pages that students print out, print one on the back of the First Inside Page from the previous step -

4 – Inside Pages

Now I suggest that you print 2 more double sided pages of the the Inside Pages so that you can make a nice booklet.

A long time ago I wrote this short eBook on using AR to motivate students to read.  The eBook is bascially a collection of the celebrations I have seen in schools over the years of training on the use of AR.

The ideas in the book are all based on the use of AR points to motivate students.  Remembering that AR points are a unit of measure and nothing more.  The higher the points for a book the the longer that book.  By setting each student in your class an AR Points Target you can really focus on increasing the Quantity of each student’s Reading Practice.  The ideas in the book are focussed on the % of a students target that they achieve, thus allowing all students in the class to compete equally regardless of their reading level or capability.

I hope you can use some of these to motivate the students reading practice in your classroom.

Motivation Ideas – Vol 1 Jan 08- LR

There may be times when you just can’t wait for a quiz to be written by us, or the book you want quizzed is specialist to your school needs.  You may also want to consider having students write quizzes as an extension exercise.  With AR you can write your own quizzes called Teacher made quizzes.

Teacher made quizzes are Reading Practice Quizzes that teachers, librarians or other staff members add to Accelerated Reader.  The software allows the creation of 500 teacher made Reading Practice Quizzes per school.  The quiz numbers 900–1399 are reserved for these quizzes.

As preparation for creating a quiz, read several books written at the same readability level as the book for which you plan to write a quiz. Then take the matching Accelerated Reader Reading Practice Quizzes.

When writing a quiz think about these points:

• the book’s important events
• ask questions in a sequence that matches the events in the book
• write clear questions and answers
• make sure the incorrect answers are plausible and do not give away the correct answer easily
• use vocabulary that is about the same level of difficulty as the book
• ask other teachers to give the quiz a trial before releasing it for student use

You need to do a bit of research before writing your quiz:

1. book level
2. word count

To help determine the book level and word count, search for the book details on www.Amazon.com, you might just find the exact ATOS level and the number of words in the book.   The AR software will automatically calculate the number of points a quiz is worth based on the word count and book level.

You will need to decide how long your quiz will be.  It can be 5, 10 or 20 questions long.  Consider book level and length when deciding how many questions to include.

Creating the Actual Quiz:

1. Log into your AR Site with an account that has the privileges to Manage Quizzes, this is typically the AR Coordinator, Librarian or Administrator
2. Select the Manage Quizzes link from the Accelerated Reader Tab
3. Select Reading Practice
4. Select View All Teacher Made Quizzes
5. Select Add Teacher Made Quiz
6. Enter the details of your book
7. Write your quiz
8. Remember to select the check box at the end that allows students to take the actual quiz

Tips – Writing Teacher Made Quizzes