Re: AR points

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As I understand the AR program the goals are dual - to
encourage reading at each child's individual level, and
promote comprehension through testing. Our school requires
that the children maintain an 85% comprehension score through
the nine weeks in addition to achieving the point total. This
increases to 90% in grade 4. Additionally, each student is
assigned a number of points and / or specific types of books
and minimum point values to be read each nine weeks. I like
the combination of types of books and points because students
are then required to step outside the comfort zone
of "Captain Underpants" and try out different kinds of books.

I think it's unfortunate that your school is assigning a
grade to AR work. That is especially unfortunate when they
are essentially discouraging the students from reading the
higher level, higer point value books. I think the best thing
to do is to encourage your son to keep reading those big
chapter books, but give him a tool to help increase his
retention of the storyline. After reading a chapter, he could
create a basic storymap of that chapter. Give him a notebook
and have him log these facts:
-The Chapter number
-A name that helps him remember what happened
-Characters - how they changed or new characters
-Setting(s)
-Conflict

Have him review the notebook before testing and it may help
him out!  

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