Accelerated Reader

by Sidonie Ward

If you have visited the Savoy Library recently you may have noticed that some of the fiction books have been marked with orange and red stickers. If you got close enough to the shelves you would have seen that each sticker is marked “AR” followed by a number. AR stands for Accelerated Reader, which is software used by teachers to assess and monitor reading practices of students. It is used to determine a student’s reading level in terms of an AR number, and then suggests books within that student’s ability. A student take a quiz once she has completed a book, which teachers can then use as indication of her progress. LAS Library has been working with ESL and English teachers to make it easy for students to find books within their reading levels, hence the attractive outbreak of red and orange spots among the books. The brightly coloured stickers provide not only a pleasant visual, but also an easy way to identify those books which have been assigned an AR number. Also, despite being touted as a tool for grades K-12, plenty of adult books have AR numbers to the benefit of older students, or even adults that have been assessed using this method.

The AR Finder provides the AR number and summary among other things. Currently, about 75% of our fiction books in Savoy have an AR number. LAS Library is hoping to rearrange the fiction section to further facilitate searching for appropriate books by grouping AR books together.