Accelerated Reader (AR) is a motivational reading program used in K-12 schools across the nation. The program is set-up to allow student success in comprehension by placing students in appropriate reading ranges. Daily silent, sustained reading has been proven to raise student reading skill levels as well as build vocabulary, and it is our hope at Yolo that it will instill a life-long habit of reading.
All of the students at Yolo are actively involved with AR in their Language Arts classes. The students are assessed at the beginning of each school year to determine the appropriate reading range in which they will be placed. Once a student is placed in a reading range, he/she is given a title’s list with each book having a point value based on its difficulty. Each student has a 4 to 5 week period (depending on the school calendar) to earn points toward a points goal by passing comprehension quizzes on the computer. The computer keeps track of how many points a student has earned and how many points he/she needs to complete the goal.
As students grow in their reading ability, they may move up reading ranges after discussing it with their teacher.
The Yolo Middle School library has over 2,000 AR books available to Yolo’s student body. We plan to continue adding AR books in the years to come to give our students the widest and most up-to-date range of choices.