What is Reading Counts?

Perhaps your child has come home from school talking about taking Reading Counts tests, or maybe even just "RC" tests or quizzes. Do you know what they are referring to? If your child mentions Reading Counts, he is referring to Scholastic Reading Counts, a reading incentive program created and maintained by the Scholastic company.

A more well known product, Accelerated Reader, is used in schools throughout the country to motivate and encourage independent reading among students. Scholastic Reading Counts, though relatively new on the market, offers the same basic advantages of the Accelerated Reader program.

Scholastic, one of the leaders in publishing school books and related teaching materials, began Reading Counts several years ago, but the program is just now really gaining in popularity. One of the biggest draws of the Scholastic Reading Counts program over Accelerated Reader is that librarians and school administrators can use Scholastic Book Fair earnings to purchase the product. Most elementary schools conduct at least one Scholastic Book Fair each year and the Scholastic Dollars earned through the Book Fair sales can be put toward a year's subscription of Scholastic Reading Counts.

The way that Scholastic Reading Counts works is that students first choose read a book that has a corresponding Reading Counts quiz. The book corresponds to a Reading Counts level. Students should be expected to choose books on an appropriate level based on their grade, age, and reading ability. The book is assigned a point value based on the difficulty of the book. Students then take a Reading Counts quiz over the book. If they pass the quiz they are awarded points. Most schools have Reading Counts goals that their students are asked to achieve. Most schools also offer many incentives for meeting Scholastic Reading Counts goals or for obtaining a certain number of Reading Counts points.

Another aspect that differentiates Scholastic Reading Counts and Accelerated Reader is that Reading Counts levels are based on Lexile reading levels. Lexile numbers are used by educators to help students achieve and move forward in their reading abilities. Having books leveled according to Lexile numbers is a big deal for educators that believe in this system.

So if your child comes home talking about RC or Reading Counts books, you now know that Scholastic Reading Counts is a reading incentive program that encourages students to read, helps students choose books on an appropriate reading level, and quizzes students to determine that they really did read the books they say they did.