Accelerated Reader....A GOOD Thing!

R. L. Young placed a huge emphasis on the Accelerated Reader program last year. All of this effort by teachers, students, and parents paid off BIG TIME when test scores came back. My professional stance on reading (and I have a plaque in my office that attests to this belief) is that the MORE kids read, the BETTER they read. They learn to read by reading, just as ball players get better by hitting around the ball. Reading should never be a punishment, the key is finding what your child is truly interested in and supply him/her with reading materials. My son loved dinosaurs. He had his own personal library of dinosaur books.

I encourage you if you are not a big fan of the program, to take a second look. It's a win-win situation for children. They pick their own books according to their interests, test individually and privately, and then reap the rewards for doing well with prizes and public recognition as a student and as a class.

The gift of reading when given to a child early makes your job as a parent easier in the later years. Plus, there is no better way to snuggle with a child than with a good book!

For more information on AR, click to read this guide for parents. Happy Reading............