Banner County School Library

At the beginning of the school year, each child is evaluated as to their reading ability.  They are then assigned a "ZPD" (don't ask) number signifying his/her reading level.  During reading time, each child is encouraged to read a book that has a similar ZPD value - a book that is neither too easy nor too difficult.  This process builds the student's self-confidence and strengthens his/her ability to read at that level.  After the book has been read, the child is given a reading comprehension test, via Accelerated Reader, to evaluate what they retained from the story.  They then receive a score of 100% for getting all the questions right or something less if they miss one or more questions about the book.

Throughout the school year the Accelerated Reader program continuously monitors the child's progress.  If the child has consistently received 100% scores on his/her tests the program then recommends that the child be advanced to a higher ZPD and, consequently, more challenging books. 

Each book in our library, for which an Accelerated Reader test is available, is assigned a "weighting factor".  This factor has been determined by professional educators and relates to the relative reading difficulty of the book.  For example, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" has a difficulty rating of 5.5 and is designed to be read by any child who can read on the 5th grade level and higher.  On the other hand, a popular 1st grade reader, "Buz" has a rating of 1.4.

Each time a child gets a score on an Accelerated Reader test, the weighted value of that book is added to the child's reading records.  These scores are accumulative and, over time, represent what the child  has accomplished during the course of the year.

Weekly, each teacher receives a computer report showing the total points accumulated to date for every child in his/her class.  To the teacher, this is an indicator of each child's propensity for reading coupled with the difficulty of the books he/she is reading.