Accelerated Reader

[czechmate]

Moms,
Anyone familar with Accelerated Reader program?

I'm having a hard time finding interesting books for my 8 yr old this year. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

(If the AR levels are standard across the board, then he needs level 3.9 for this grading period.)

Jen

[Shar]

Hi
I am familiar with A/R as teacher. From what I know it depends on what tests the school has paid for/installed as to what choices the kids have. I think you have to ask the school for a list of choices or visit the media center and the books should be color coded and labeled A/R. But I looked online at some lists for 3.9 and a few books that my third graders liked were: War with Grandpa, Box Car Children, and Cam Jansen. I would stay away from The Whipping Boy because it has a LOT of metaphors that I had to explain to my highest reading group.
Good Luck!

[Mistress Trista]

At my son's school, they only get the AR points if the test is in their system. He read everything for the 8th grade while he was in the 7th grade, so there's nothing left for him to read, so he's not participating this year.

Which really sucks. They need more books and tests.

[czechmate]

Thanks.
My DS is having such a hard time with it this year.
He enjoys the Magic Tree House series, but they're "too easy" for him. Then MTH came out with another type of story -- like a readers guide and those are too hard for him. He loves weather, especially tornados and he read the readers guide with my DH and he missed 3 questions and didn't pass the test.

I will try some that Shar suggested. I have the school list but didn't know what he would like.

Third grade is such a change. He's been having up to 1 1/2 hrs of homework plus AR reading!!!! Lets just say I'm not looking forward to 4th and 5th and.......

Thanks again,
Jen

[Shar]

I really don't know what's on your school's list. If you want to email me some titles I could see if I know them. It's important he finds something he likes or it will be that much harder. That sounds like a LOT of hw time to me!!! Is it leftover from classwork or are they just giving too much?

[skibum515]

holy smokes! I can't believe they're giving kids that much homework in elementary school! I didn't start having homework (besides projects) until middle school.

[czechmate]

Thankfully he has no homework for the weekend!
Last night he went to bed at 10pm. He completed his homework at school, but when I checked it -- it was wrong. Then we had to finish reading a book for the AR test today.

Shar,
I've heard of Box Car and Cam -- I will see if he's interested in either of those. Thanks for the recommendation!!!!!!
Jen

[Adreamer's_wfe]

I am a LA teacher, and very familiar with AR. The color codes vary from school to school. I agree that you need to ask for a master list of the books that your school has tests for. Our DD is a wonerful reader, and the school really cannot keep up with her, so I buy books myself. If you get the Scholastic book orders sent home with your child, check it out. I usually will get a set of books, for around $30.00 which has 20-30 books.

Regarding the homework - an hour and a half of homework every night is too much. Ask if your school has guidelines, and what they are, and if your child's teacher follows them. Ask her what her rational is for having that much homework. Ask her how long she thinks it should take for your child to complete the work. In the past I had parents ready to kill me over homework - hours they were spending at home, when really I meant for it to be a 45 min. job. The kids liked the one-on-one time with parents, so they were dragging it out. I encourage parents to let the kids do the work on their own, then check it when it was done. Also, if the teacher tells you it should only take 30 min., then set the kitchen timer for 30 minutes and encourage your child to get it done in that amount of time.

I have a second grader, her only homework is the spelling words for the week - which she already knows -ggrrr.

[ccbegay]

1 1/2hrs for a 3rd grader! good grief...the first time I had "real" homework was in the 6th grade!

[czechmate]

I need to clarify DS's amount of homework.
He's having up to 1 1/2 hours per night, not every night.

On average I would say that he works about 45 min per night on homework. Some of that time is me -- If his handwriting is bad, wrong capitalization, etc. I make him erase it and do it again. He gets very frustrated with me, but his teacher made it known that if she couldn't read it or it was wrong, then he would lose his points.

Last week was the worst at 1 1/2 hrs. He had to finish a science project, art project, math page, 2 spelling pages, study for spelling test and read 3 chapters in his AR book. All in one night!!!!

I'm concerned because every week the homework seems to be getting more and more.

Then...
I found out from another mom in the class that the teacher picks certain kids each morning to serve as "moles". What I mean by that is, those secretly hand-picked kids police the other kids when she's unavailable. Those kids then tell the teacher who was talking, messing around and then the "offenders" lose 3-5 min of their recess. My DS has said that some of those kids are lying to the teacher about some of the kids. Almost like they're ganging up on certain kids to get them into trouble.

Then...
I found out that for the spelling test, the teacher has the kids grade each others papers. That's fine EXCEPT the kids get to determine whether they think best penmanship was used, if not then they consider the word to be wrong!!!! Why would I want my child to determine if other kids are using their best penmanship???? I know that my friend's son had a word marked wrong (even though the word was spelled correctly) due to bad penmanship!!!!

Are these teaching habits "normal"?

Jen