Rally Round Reading
by Joan Wilson
February 03, 2010
Whether “in the valley” or “on the hill,” Logan View students are revved up about the reading “R” following Accelerated Reader rallies held on Jan. 12 and 29.
“We organized two AR leagues a couple of months into the year, after all students had established some points with the computer-based reading incentive program,” said media specialist Jan Blomendahl. Teachers thought the friendly competition might inspire all readers and used individual points to create teams that partnered less enthusiastic and voracious readers together.“
The AR program has two student leagues. "In the Valley" includes 12 teams of 2-4 graders at the Hooper elementary. "On the Hill' includes six teams of 5-6 graders at the junior-senior high campus. Teachers even decided to get in on the fun with their own league, The Road Warriors.
Teamwork appears to be working. At the beginning of February, “On the Hill” teams of 5th and 6th graders had accumulated 1,970.1 total points. “In the Valley” teams of 2nd-4th graders had earned 2,246.3 points.
To reward and rally round reading, all students had their choice of individual prizes at a rally event, but team status determined who got to select prizes first. Prize items were also grouped by individual point ranges, so each student was appropriately rewarded for his or her own accomplishments.
The rallies also featured reading cheers and pep talks from the coaches to encourage students to strive towards teamwork. Teams were awarded ribbon bookmarks, and 2nd-4th grade students were given journals to help them keep track of books they read at home or from the public library that may have an AR quiz.
The tracking software gives Blomendahl, and para-educator Cherie Anderson, a running account of points accumulated, and each Friday they post the results for the week. “It's fun to see teams change places...not the same teams are the front runners each week!”
Large rallies will be held again at the end of the year but "in-between activities" are scheduled before then, she said. Since the league competition format does not include K-1 students, library media staff and teachers are planning a reading day for them on Read Across America Day in March.
The computerized book quiz program contains over 120,000 literature titles to select from. The software provides students and teachers feedback from quizzes based on books the students read. The Accelerated Reader program allows each student to move at his or her own pace and level of ability while motivating them to read and has search features to guide student reading and help select titles. 1
1 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from a publicly available source: the program’s website (www.renlearn.com/ar/
