We asked and you answered! Our questions about Accelerated Reader drew a bunch of great responses from the field. Thank you for taking the time to write in! In this post we summarize responses from question 1.

Question 1 from the field about Accelerated Reader: We have used Accelerated Reader for the past 16 years and are exploring other options/alternatives.What are other schools using to help create strong readers?

We got a mixed bag of positive and negative responses about Accelerated Reader. Some found it “limiting and detrimental to a lifelong pursuit of literacy and takes all the joy and choice out of reading,” while others noted that at their district without it, “circulation dropped by over 50 % and… reading scores have also tanked.”

Unfortunately we didn’t get a long list of alternatives but there were a few! One person said their district is using Daily 5 and CAFE. Another person said they are using Read 180 but only for their “lowest” students. Most of our responders mentioned making sure to have proper motivation for students. Luckily this ties directly to our second question. Stay tuned for next weeks post!