So proud of you to recognize that the AR system doesn’t set our youngest learners up for success and their feelings about themselves as a reader. Your kids will already be successful because you know that the components of Science of Reading are key to developing strategic readers. Continue using that research to guide your instruction and it will all fall into place even if you are REQUIRED to use AR. I was in the same position when I taught in the primary grades, but my staff and building leadership team I was doing things differently and saw I was closing the gap for kids. I was able to start leading PD on some of the components of SOR and now we are going into year 3 with a full push to align all classrooms with SOR.
Former kindergarten teacher here! 👋🏾 I taught at a school where AR was big! We did a whole group read-aloud of a book at the beginning of the day and throughout the day the students would rotate through computers and take the test. At the beginning of each test, AR asked how the book was read…one choice is read to. The questions and answers can also be read to the kids by turning on that feature. Hope that helps.
I had the same problem with AR in my 1st grade class. After much talking and negotiating with my principal, I now don't start AR until 2 semester. If I do have some students that are at the mid level first grade, I can start them earlier. Meanwhile, we just read for fun, while using The Science of Reading practices, our decodable books and passages to get our Phonemic Awareness and Phonics levels to the point of supporting 1st grade level books. I love your Vlogs. I am a 25+ year teacher, relearning how to teach reading, nervous, but loving it. Your energy and ideas energize me! Thank you for helping an old dog with your new ideas. We are never too old to quit learning. Old but not stale. LOL
Wanted to post this to explain what "happened" to my stuff! But I get a ton more done in the next video - which I'm trying to post as soon as I can! :) I think there's going to be a total of 5 setup videos. My first week was this past week, and I have two vlogs to share from my first day, so I'm working overtime to get everything out for y'all 💛 be sure to follow me on insta in the mean time for allllll the back to school things.
If you are wanting to get past AR, shut your door and follow SOR.....here's a way. Find books that you can put on a screen/smart board. Let students watch. Then post the quiz number. Then they can take the test right after. I know it sounds shady, but sometimes we need to work around things to do what is best for our students.
So thankful to hear you say you are going to allow free choice reading in your class. ❤️ I did in AR in elementary and learned to hate reading until I was in college. School was very hard for me and AR was just another way for me to feel worse about my reading abilities. Having a free choice reading time would have been so refreshing. On a side note your room is coming along so well!! 😊
Public librarian here! I would recommend checking your personal library for AR anyways and maybe keeping at least a list of which ones are AR - you would be surprised how many books are AR books. That way if a student ever reads them and it happens to be an AR book, they can still test on it! I labeled my library’s children’s books for AR because our schools use it where I live and saw so much more use after even though it’s not everyone’s favorite. Good luck this school year!
AR is big in my district. We complete Star testing early in the year and it populates the students AR goals and levels in Renaissance based on their scores. You can also go in and change their goals (I usually only do this in winter/spring - I always leave fall goals). They can also read in MyON in my district and test on those books, my students are older though - so probably not for K-1. Book levels and values are given. For my classroom library I just put the level on a sticker on the front, and write the level and point values on the inside cover. You can color code the stickers based on your school library - but I just use plain white stickers because you can get them at Dollar Tree. You can do read alouds for young readers and them have them complete the AR test, they can click that the book was read to them.
haha I am so grateful! Could have been so much worse! The did damage some of our home things, and we are missing some things, but we will get reimbursed in some form at least
I'm in Australia and the border you are using is what I plan on using next year. Our school year starts January. It's good to see what I want to do ahead of time. Thanks. Lol
Love how you make me feel like I am there with you. Dealing with distractions added to your stress and you should not feel like you are letting anyone down. I like that there are videos to look forward to and you should not put pressure on yourself Teachers know how very many things you must focus on as you start the year in a new school. You continue to be a positive inspiration and a darling, lovely example. Take care of yourself and thank you for sharing your life.
When students log on to take an AR test, it gives options to choose from “read myself” “read with someone” “I was read to” I’m in third grade, but I also do a monthly read aloud with them that they can take an AR test for. We don’t focus on the points at my school, but it’s the quickest way for me to check that they are reading the books that they check out.
I'm in Canada and we had something like AR and I absolutely hated it as a kid. I'm dyslexic and struggle horribly with read. My school was honestly really bad at teaching in general and they never helped one on one if it wasn't a whole class thing you didn't get help. I was in the lowest reading level and it was so embarrassing and they told me I could pick from any book and "look at it" because they didn't want me getting more bullied. That was the solution instead of helping once I got into the 5th grade. This kind of reading is the reason that at 21 I still refuse to read for enjoyment and refuse to read outloud and get uncomfortable when people tell me to read things to have conversations about. Just from your videos I doubt you'll not help them individually so there shouldn't be issues. But just be encouraging and remind them that it's okay for them to read at a lower level and at whatever level works because it's better to read and understand than to not be able to understand anything
I love your videos! You make setting up a room look easy, but I know it is so not! I am a first grade teacher in CA. This will be my 27th year in first. But every summer, it is a real struggle to put everything away and then set it up again in August. Wishing you lost of great adventures this year with your kiddos!! :)
You are doing amazing and everything I am sure looks great! Can not wait to watch your school year unfold! So happy for you that you feel like you are at a school where you have support.
I did AR at my first school with 2nd graders. What helped was to color code the books for the different levels (with highlighter on the spine). I would get about 30 books for 2 weeks from the school library. I would designate specific AR reading time where the kids would choose 1-3 books a week to read and test on. They would read the same book(s) during that time and would test at the end of the week. We only had 1 laptop to test on. Depending on your kids reading levels (from STAR), this will determine what levels you need in your AR library. Its not too hard but you'll need to find a way to monitor the kids during the week to test (I think I did a pocket chart with the students' names and they would move it from one area to t he next when they were ready to test or when they tested). Of course if you have more tech than this may be easier to track. Good luck!
Hey! When they take the AR test it asks if they were read to, read independently, or read with someone. You can read the books aloud and then they can take a test. It still is assessing their comprehension skills. Also the lower point books have “recorded voice” option (headphone icon) where it reads the questions to the students.
We use Lexile levels at my school. Half of my library was labeled with levels but the other half was not. So instead of going through and labeling each book that wasn’t labeled, what I did was I organized my library in half. One half was all leveled and the other half was by genre. Then what I’m doing is each kid has to have three books in their books bins from my library. So they have to have 1 leveled book that’s at their level, 1 chapter book (I’m in third grade), and 1 fee choice book. So that way they have a book that’s at their level, but they can choose any other books that seems interesting to them!
Your completely right about the AR!! It seems that the goal post was moved on the grade levels. Kinders are expected to know 1st, first expected to know second and so on...sad
Mrs. Call! I’m learning so much for you. I’m a parent to a first grader in California and want to learn about SOR. Do you have any good resources you could recommend? My daughter loves school and learning and literature and I want to make sure that what we do to supplement her learning at home makes sense and sets her up for success!!
I can relate with the AR program.. I am now 2nd year retired. But, I did do this with 1st grade. The beginning is super hard. I always partnered with an older class (3rd or 4th grade)-Book Buddies. These “pros”. Taught my first graders how to test and they read 1-2 books with my kids once a week and helped them test. We did this for about 9 weeks and some had to have a “book buddy” till Christmas.. you might see if this is possible. It is good for the first graders, the bigger kids, and the teacher. ❤️😊
You mentioned an Amazon wish list as a early career teacher in just curious as to how to use an Amazon wish list? Where do you post it? Who do you share it with? What do you add to it? Most of my class supplies I’ve bought myself or have been bought for the school and are not mine to take with me.
Yikes! AR sounds like it’ll be a challenge. We have Fountas and Pinell and sometimes feel their levels are not accurate for beginning readers either. Once they’re up to level E, it’s fine, but their level A and B books have so many irregularly spelled words and untaught sight words. 🙄 Another teacher and I purchased some awesome decodables from School Specialty and just have our beginning readers use those until they’re ready for level D or E. We didn’t ask permission lol.
Best AR tip: Don’t buy in to the claim that it is a reading program that disregards or minimizes student choice! It’s a great program for encouraging self selected, interest based reading and book exploration! There are thousands upon thousands of books of every kind at every single level, so that argument simply doesn’t hold water. Students are accountable for independent reading…WIN! However… I am flexible. So for example, if a student has read all of a series but one is above or below their level, I let them read it. It’s a good guide, but remember you’re the teacher! Best of luck!
On our move to Korea, everyone was picked up in a bus and it was so chaotic. This one family brought their dog with them and due to miscommunication it got left on the bus. After such a long, stressful day this poor young couple then had to stay up trying to locate the pup. Complete nightmare.
When I was in fifth grade my reading level was like 12.6 and our school library had like 1 book I could test on so I ended up taking a bunch of tests for points that didn't count. Why does AR still exist? 😭
Also, your Piggie and Elephant books are going to be 0.1-1.9 book levels! They are great or your little ones! I know AR can be daunting, but there is benefits of it. I use Epic to help the students understand the books better and most of the lower level books quizzes are read to them.
Yes they are! And I have quite a few in the AR section! My school has a rule that the kids have to read the books on their own and can't listen but you're right the first "level" they can....that's so confusing and I feel like it doesn't quite set the right precedence! Our kindergarten team got decodables to start a path before starting AR and THAT is what I love! Just trying to understand the disconnect between kinder now being able to do decodables -> being read a book that they can't read on their own and testing to start AR -> having to read a book they can't read yet without help right after when the books have no sequence of skills because it's based on word difficulty and word count. But our school says our kids can ask others words they don't know. Haha we will see how this goes! Like I said, I've never done it.
I am so confused by the AR stuff. biscuit is a level G (first graders go from D- level I) and so it would be considered mid-end of year first grade book for F&P. So strange!
+Mrs. Call's Campers Mayleen, How do you manage to still be able to take things in stride after having to wait for Your Classroom Materials? I am feeling that all the way to My Part of the country. Keep handling it like a champ. - Dwight
If I were in your position with AR (which I’ve never used, but I have used PM/BAS), I’d probably just try my best during the bulk of the year, but really look at the “level” they can read by the end of the year, once they’ve learned a ton of phonics skills and HFW. The BOY/MOY scores may be awful, but the “improvement” once they’ve actually been taught the code will be incredible! That’s the only way I can think to do it. Frustrating nonetheless.
I was a.Pre K teacher for 12 years and I focused on reading very heavily so when my students started Kindergarten most were reading above their level which most teachers appreciated but for some it was difficult I understand since there was so many different level readers in the class! II love watching your videos but sometime you talk so fast that it gets hard to keep up !!.Do you talk that fast in your class or is it that you are trying to get a lot covered for us? Just curious! 😊
I talk faster to y'all to cover more :) I usually speed up TH-cam videos I am watching because people talk slower 😂 if you hit the "gear" option at the bottom of the video you can slow me down slightly!
So proud of you to recognize that the AR system doesn’t set our youngest learners up for success and their feelings about themselves as a reader. Your kids will already be successful because you know that the components of Science of Reading are key to developing strategic readers. Continue using that research to guide your instruction and it will all fall into place even if you are REQUIRED to use AR. I was in the same position when I taught in the primary grades, but my staff and building leadership team I was doing things differently and saw I was closing the gap for kids. I was able to start leading PD on some of the components of SOR and now we are going into year 3 with a full push to align all classrooms with SOR.
WOW you're amazing!!!!!!
Former kindergarten teacher here! 👋🏾 I taught at a school where AR was big! We did a whole group read-aloud of a book at the beginning of the day and throughout the day the students would rotate through computers and take the test. At the beginning of each test, AR asked how the book was read…one choice is read to. The questions and answers can also be read to the kids by turning on that feature. Hope that helps.
I had the same problem with AR in my 1st grade class. After much talking and negotiating with my principal, I now don't start AR until 2 semester. If I do have some students that are at the mid level first grade, I can start them earlier. Meanwhile, we just read for fun, while using The Science of Reading practices, our decodable books and passages to get our Phonemic Awareness and Phonics levels to the point of supporting 1st grade level books.
I love your Vlogs. I am a 25+ year teacher, relearning how to teach reading, nervous, but loving it. Your energy and ideas energize me! Thank you for helping an old dog with your new ideas. We are never too old to quit learning.
Old but not stale. LOL
Wanted to post this to explain what "happened" to my stuff! But I get a ton more done in the next video - which I'm trying to post as soon as I can! :) I think there's going to be a total of 5 setup videos. My first week was this past week, and I have two vlogs to share from my first day, so I'm working overtime to get everything out for y'all 💛 be sure to follow me on insta in the mean time for allllll the back to school things.
Thanks for working so hard but also, take a break for yourself! We can wait.
If you are wanting to get past AR, shut your door and follow SOR.....here's a way. Find books that you can put on a screen/smart board. Let students watch. Then post the quiz number. Then they can take the test right after. I know it sounds shady, but sometimes we need to work around things to do what is best for our students.
So thankful to hear you say you are going to allow free choice reading in your class. ❤️ I did in AR in elementary and learned to hate reading until I was in college. School was very hard for me and AR was just another way for me to feel worse about my reading abilities. Having a free choice reading time would have been so refreshing.
On a side note your room is coming along so well!! 😊
Public librarian here! I would recommend checking your personal library for AR anyways and maybe keeping at least a list of which ones are AR - you would be surprised how many books are AR books. That way if a student ever reads them and it happens to be an AR book, they can still test on it! I labeled my library’s children’s books for AR because our schools use it where I live and saw so much more use after even though it’s not everyone’s favorite. Good luck this school year!
Community makes all the difference! So happy for you!
AR is big in my district. We complete Star testing early in the year and it populates the students AR goals and levels in Renaissance based on their scores. You can also go in and change their goals (I usually only do this in winter/spring - I always leave fall goals). They can also read in MyON in my district and test on those books, my students are older though - so probably not for K-1. Book levels and values are given. For my classroom library I just put the level on a sticker on the front, and write the level and point values on the inside cover. You can color code the stickers based on your school library - but I just use plain white stickers because you can get them at Dollar Tree. You can do read alouds for young readers and them have them complete the AR test, they can click that the book was read to them.
Love your bulletin boards and paint colors! You are
a rockstar! 👏🏻🥰
I’m just so glad your stuff wasn’t damaged and was found. I’ve heard horror stories and I was worried for you!
haha I am so grateful! Could have been so much worse! The did damage some of our home things, and we are missing some things, but we will get reimbursed in some form at least
We are feeling the humidity here in AZ too! 🥵
I'm in Australia and the border you are using is what I plan on using next year. Our school year starts January. It's good to see what I want to do ahead of time. Thanks. Lol
Love how you make me feel like I am there with you. Dealing with distractions added to your stress and you should not feel like you are letting anyone down. I like that there are videos to look forward to and you should not put pressure on yourself Teachers know how very many things you must focus on as you start the year in a new school. You continue to be a positive inspiration and a darling, lovely example. Take care of yourself and thank you for sharing your life.
When students log on to take an AR test, it gives options to choose from “read myself” “read with someone” “I was read to”
I’m in third grade, but I also do a monthly read aloud with them that they can take an AR test for. We don’t focus on the points at my school, but it’s the quickest way for me to check that they are reading the books that they check out.
The boards look great! I havent seen that pattern before. Love it!
Your bulletin board looks great! It’s got a nice bright, calm and earthy vibe 🥰
Excuse me, two videos in a row?! 🙌 Perfect way to spend a rainy morning sick!
Feel better soon 💛
@@MrsCallsCampers Thanks! Getting it out of the way before school starts. ❤️
I'm in Canada and we had something like AR and I absolutely hated it as a kid. I'm dyslexic and struggle horribly with read. My school was honestly really bad at teaching in general and they never helped one on one if it wasn't a whole class thing you didn't get help. I was in the lowest reading level and it was so embarrassing and they told me I could pick from any book and "look at it" because they didn't want me getting more bullied. That was the solution instead of helping once I got into the 5th grade. This kind of reading is the reason that at 21 I still refuse to read for enjoyment and refuse to read outloud and get uncomfortable when people tell me to read things to have conversations about. Just from your videos I doubt you'll not help them individually so there shouldn't be issues.
But just be encouraging and remind them that it's okay for them to read at a lower level and at whatever level works because it's better to read and understand than to not be able to understand anything
I love your videos! You make setting up a room look easy, but I know it is so not! I am a first grade teacher in CA. This will be my 27th year in first. But every summer, it is a real struggle to put everything away and then set it up again in August. Wishing you lost of great adventures this year with your kiddos!! :)
I really like the bulletin boards. Neutral and not too overstimulating!
You are doing amazing and everything I am sure looks great! Can not wait to watch your school year unfold! So happy for you that you feel like you are at a school where you have support.
I did AR at my first school with 2nd graders. What helped was to color code the books for the different levels (with highlighter on the spine). I would get about 30 books for 2 weeks from the school library. I would designate specific AR reading time where the kids would choose 1-3 books a week to read and test on. They would read the same book(s) during that time and would test at the end of the week. We only had 1 laptop to test on. Depending on your kids reading levels (from STAR), this will determine what levels you need in your AR library. Its not too hard but you'll need to find a way to monitor the kids during the week to test (I think I did a pocket chart with the students' names and they would move it from one area to t he next when they were ready to test or when they tested). Of course if you have more tech than this may be easier to track. Good luck!
Hey! When they take the AR test it asks if they were read to, read independently, or read with someone. You can read the books aloud and then they can take a test. It still is assessing their comprehension skills. Also the lower point books have “recorded voice” option (headphone icon) where it reads the questions to the students.
No not at my school they have to read it!
We use Lexile levels at my school. Half of my library was labeled with levels but the other half was not. So instead of going through and labeling each book that wasn’t labeled, what I did was I organized my library in half. One half was all leveled and the other half was by genre. Then what I’m doing is each kid has to have three books in their books bins from my library. So they have to have 1 leveled book that’s at their level, 1 chapter book (I’m in third grade), and 1 fee choice book. So that way they have a book that’s at their level, but they can choose any other books that seems interesting to them!
Looks great! One day at a time.
I like the layered borders on your bulletin board! 🥰
Thank you!!!!!!
Your completely right about the AR!! It seems that the goal post was moved on the grade levels. Kinders are expected to know 1st, first expected to know second and so on...sad
Mrs. Call! I’m learning so much for you. I’m a parent to a first grader in California and want to learn about SOR. Do you have any good resources you could recommend? My daughter loves school and learning and literature and I want to make sure that what we do to supplement her learning at home makes sense and sets her up for success!!
Use AR book finder to find levels for books. Very helpful when you’re out shopping for different books
I'm not going to buy AR books!
I can relate with the AR program.. I am now 2nd year retired. But, I did do this with 1st grade. The beginning is super hard. I always partnered with an older class (3rd or 4th grade)-Book Buddies. These “pros”. Taught my first graders how to test and they read 1-2 books with my kids once a week and helped them test. We did this for about 9 weeks and some had to have a “book buddy” till Christmas.. you might see if this is possible. It is good for the first graders, the bigger kids, and the teacher. ❤️😊
You mentioned an Amazon wish list as a early career teacher in just curious as to how to use an Amazon wish list? Where do you post it? Who do you share it with? What do you add to it?
Most of my class supplies I’ve bought myself or have been bought for the school and are not mine to take with me.
I label mine 1A and 1B and so forth so they learn based on our conversations which one to choose from.
Yikes! AR sounds like it’ll be a challenge. We have Fountas and Pinell and sometimes feel their levels are not accurate for beginning readers either. Once they’re up to level E, it’s fine, but their level A and B books have so many irregularly spelled words and untaught sight words. 🙄 Another teacher and I purchased some awesome decodables from School Specialty and just have our beginning readers use those until they’re ready for level D or E. We didn’t ask permission lol.
I am glad your stuff was found. My sister had extremely bad experience. They had to replace everything that was moved. Military had to pay for the it.
Best AR tip: Don’t buy in to the claim that it is a reading program that disregards or minimizes student choice! It’s a great program for encouraging self selected, interest based reading and book exploration! There are thousands upon thousands of books of every kind at every single level, so that argument simply doesn’t hold water. Students are accountable for independent reading…WIN! However… I am flexible. So for example, if a student has read all of a series but one is above or below their level, I let them read it. It’s a good guide, but remember you’re the teacher! Best of luck!
Thank you so much!
On our move to Korea, everyone was picked up in a bus and it was so chaotic. This one family brought their dog with them and due to miscommunication it got left on the bus. After such a long, stressful day this poor young couple then had to stay up trying to locate the pup. Complete nightmare.
When I was in fifth grade my reading level was like 12.6 and our school library had like 1 book I could test on so I ended up taking a bunch of tests for points that didn't count. Why does AR still exist? 😭
Also, your Piggie and Elephant books are going to be 0.1-1.9 book levels! They are great or your little ones! I know AR can be daunting, but there is benefits of it. I use Epic to help the students understand the books better and most of the lower level books quizzes are read to them.
Yes they are! And I have quite a few in the AR section! My school has a rule that the kids have to read the books on their own and can't listen but you're right the first "level" they can....that's so confusing and I feel like it doesn't quite set the right precedence! Our kindergarten team got decodables to start a path before starting AR and THAT is what I love! Just trying to understand the disconnect between kinder now being able to do decodables -> being read a book that they can't read on their own and testing to start AR -> having to read a book they can't read yet without help right after when the books have no sequence of skills because it's based on word difficulty and word count. But our school says our kids can ask others words they don't know. Haha we will see how this goes! Like I said, I've never done it.
I am so confused by the AR stuff. biscuit is a level G (first graders go from D- level I) and so it would be considered mid-end of year first grade book for F&P. So strange!
AR in first grade is crazy! Way too little. When I was a kid in the early 2000s AR started in third grade!
+Mrs. Call's Campers
Mayleen,
How do you manage to still be able to take things in stride after having to wait for Your Classroom Materials?
I am feeling that all the way to My Part of the country.
Keep handling it like a champ.
- Dwight
When does the school year start in Clark County?
Last week :)
I have not used AR at that young of a level, but it is a Whole Language based program not phonics (which is why it doesn't feel right).
If I were in your position with AR (which I’ve never used, but I have used PM/BAS), I’d probably just try my best during the bulk of the year, but really look at the “level” they can read by the end of the year, once they’ve learned a ton of phonics skills and HFW. The BOY/MOY scores may be awful, but the “improvement” once they’ve actually been taught the code will be incredible! That’s the only way I can think to do it. Frustrating nonetheless.
Yeah, I used bobs books to teach the basics. I hate leveled readers.
Are you doing other classroom video
Yes :)
I was a.Pre K teacher for 12 years and I focused on reading very heavily so when my students started Kindergarten most were reading above their level which most teachers appreciated but for some it was difficult I understand since there was so many different level readers in the class! II love watching your videos but sometime you talk so fast that it gets hard to keep up !!.Do you talk that fast in your class or is it that you are trying to get a lot covered for us? Just curious! 😊
I talk faster to y'all to cover more :) I usually speed up TH-cam videos I am watching because people talk slower 😂 if you hit the "gear" option at the bottom of the video you can slow me down slightly!
AR is a terrible program