Sensing Progress

During my time at Sherwood Middle, reading AR (Accelerated Reader) books was a major part of each ELA class period. My mentor kept a running total of each student’s AR points posted on the wall in plain view of the class. It was in the form of bar chart—similar to the one on p. 28 of the workbook. The more points a student had, the more bars would be colored in by the teacher.

In Zadina’s workbook, she urges us to come up with a measurable goal that students can work toward gradually over time. I agree that being able to literally see progress is great for motivation in a student. However, Zadina points out that “you would want to keep the progress private, unless it was a class goal.” I don’t fully agree with this statement. It seemed to me that at Sherwood, the fact that the AR point chart was public and in sight of the entire class created a healthy competition among the students. Each wanted to best their fellow classmates and be the first to reach their AR goal, which meant more reading.

The idea of a chart to mark the progress of students seems very useful in a classroom setting not only for student motivation but also for maintaining student attention over the long term or rather reminding students of the goal they are working toward. It is possible however that the chart may create undue pressure in the student, causing anxiety. As Zadina points out in Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain, “anxiety in any student can interfere with working memory.” (122). This statement is included in the book to make a point about the pressures of timed testing but anxiety and/or pressure could also have negative effects on the end goal of the student. Numerous times while working at Sherwood I observed students seeing how far behind the rest of the class they were on the AR chart and simply giving up. I would of course encourage them to continue, but to little avail. Perhaps a private progress chart would have been more effective in this regard, but then students might have forgotten to check it and keep up with their progress.