Effects of Accelerated Reader on fourth grade student literacy levels

¶ … 1986, Accelerated Reader is a computer program designed to improve students' overall reading performances. According to readingonline.org, the Accelerated Reader program is used in one-third of the schools in the United States and has more than 25,000 titles for students in grades K-12 to choose from. The Accelerated reading software develops personalized reading goals a for each student based on the amount of time he or she can dedicate to reading and his or her reading level as determined by his or her score on the reading portion of a standardized test. The Accelerated Reader then uses this information to provide a developmentally appropriate list of books for the child to choose from.

Each book in the Accelerated Reader program is given a point value representing its length and difficulty. According to the Florida Center for Reading Research, this point value is calculated using the Advantage-TASA Open Standard Readability formula, which derived from the Flesh-Kincaid readability Index and analyzes variables such as the complexity of the sentence and the presence and degree of difficulty of polysyllabic words. Accelerated reading point values are thus calculated as follows: AR= (student's reading level + 10) X (total words / 100,000). The more challenging the book, the more AR points it will be worth. This is important to the student because they will ultimately be able to exchange the points they have earned for a variety of tangible rewards. The thinking behind this process is that these incentives will encourage students to read more frequently, and research has consistently shown that the more a child reads, the higher he or she performs on reading assessments.

In addition to increasing each student's reading frequency, the Accelerated Reader program also strives to increase each child's reading comprehension. To do this, the Accelerated Reader provides a multiple-choice test for each book that is comprised of five to twenty questions designed to assess comprehension. The tests are scored immediately, thereby providing the students with instantaneous feedback. These scores determine the number of points the student receives for each book. Students who score higher than sixty percent on the assessment receive the corresponding percentage of the book's total points, and students earning less than sixty percent receive zero points. Over the last two and a half decades, considerable research has been done on the efficacy of the Accelerated Reader program, and the majority of it has shown it to be highly effective. The remainder of this paper will focus on this research as it pertains to students in elementary schools, with particular attention paid to studies focusing on intermediate elementary grades.

In 2004, Mallette et al. published an article in the Journal of Literacy Research examining the impact of the Accelerated Reader program on students in grades four and five. The researchers looked at students in two neighboring school districts, both with similar socioeconomic statuses and reading scores. In one district, the Accelerated Reading program was the primary means of reading instruction, with its students utilizing the program for at least an hour each day. In the other district, students were occasionally exposed to the Accelerated Reading program, but it was a minimal part of their overall reading curriculum. The students' reading abilities and attitudes about reading were analyzed. Ultimately, there was not a significant difference between the two districts with regards to their reading abilities; however, the school utilizing the Accelerated Reader program performed better to a degree that approached significance. Additionally, it was found that students in the Accelerated Reader district displayed a significantly higher positive affect and attitude about academic reading. Furthermore, the positive results yielded by the Accelerated Reader program were significantly more pronounced amongst fourth grade students than fifth grade students.

In 1999, Howard analyzed the reading performances of children in third, fourth, and fifth grades over the course of one school year. During this period, the Accelerated Reading Program was implemented for the first time. The students were divided into three groups (high, medium, and low) based on the frequency with which they utilized the Accelerated Reader program. While the study does not clearly define the amount of time spent on the Accelerated Reader program by those in the low and medium group, the high group included any student who utilized the program for at least thirty minutes a day. At the beginning of the year, prior to the use of the Accelerated Reading program, seventeen percent of third grade students, nineteen percent of fourth grade students, and twenty-three percent of fifth grade students were reading at or above grade level. After a year of using the Accelerated Reader program, all of the students showed gains in their reading abilities; however, the degree of improvement was contingent on how often the Accelerated Reader program was employed. On average, the low frequency group gained 0.73 grade levels, the medium frequency group gained 1.52 grade levels, and the high frequency group gained an impressive 2.24 grade levels. This suggests that, to be truly effective, the Accelerated Reader program needs to be implemented approximately thirty minutes each day.

Studies by Holmes and Brown (2003, 2006) conducted a three-year longitudinal study on the implementation of the Accelerated Reading program at four Title I elementary schools. As part of the study, they followed a group of students through third, fourth, and fifth grade and examined their reading gains. Additionally, they assessed the teachers' responses to the program's implementation. Ultimately, they found that students attending the schools that fully implemented the program scored significantly higher than the students who attended the schools that did not. Additionally, they found that the improvements made by the students in third grade were consistent in fourth grade as well. Furthermore, throughout the study, teacher surveys indicated that teachers at each school demonstrated positive attitudes toward the Accelerated Reading Program and believed it was successful in its attempts to increase reading ability.