AR Point System: The Disparity Between Novels

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! Today is going to be an interesting post. Recently, my sister was using the AR (accelerated reader) site to check a few books, and she noticed something that immediately grabbed my attention. 

That would be none other than the disparity between novels regarding the point system. That's what I will be discussing today. 

Because I don't want to judge books and their vocabularies and difficulties without knowing anything about them, I will only be using works that I have read or know a lot about as examples. 

Let's get into the post!

King, Alexandria. Musings of an Arthritic Artist. 2021.

My mother and I have used AR for years to look up books to check their reading levels for my homeschooling. On AR they also have a points system. This is a system usually used by schools. 

I have personally never used the points system (my mother and I have never seen a point). In mine and my sister's opinions, there's a small flaw in their system, particularly in the way they handle points.

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When it comes to schools, it isn't uncommon to find students who don't like to read, so they seem to award students who read bigger books with more points. The reason I find this problematic is because the points system seems to be based on page count rather than vocabulary difficulty and content. 

For example, Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer (the fifth book in the Twilight Saga that was released in 2020) has a total award of 37 points. 

At first glance, this seems fine. Midnight Sun is 658 pages long. It's a big book. The AR reading level is a 5.4 (for those unfamiliar with how this system works, this means that it is written at the reading comprehension/vocabulary level of a fifth grader in their fourth month of school). Pride and Prejudice, while having 279 pages and an AR level of a 12.0 (twelfth grade, zero months of school), has an award of 27 points, an entire 10 points less than Midnight Sun. 

I'm not saying students shouldn't be awarded for reading Midnight Sun. They definitely should. It helps to encourage reading, no matter what the book is. However, the language in Pride and Prejudice is much harder to understand than the language in Midnight Sun. 

I have read both of these books and enjoyed both of them, but in my opinion, this is problematic. A lot of students and people in general will DNF (did not finish) Pride and Prejudice because they can't understand the vocabulary used. 

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Another thing that baffles me are the points given for Romeo and Juliet and some of William Shakespeare's other works in comparison to some others. Now, I haven't technically finished one of his plays (I started reading Romeo and Juliet last year and I think I was on Act 3 of 5), though I would say I'm fairly knowledgeable (or at least semi-experienced) in this field, seeing as how my older sister majored in English in college with a concentration in Shakespeare. 

I know that students and people struggle to get through his plays because they are written in Shakespearean English, and why Romeo and Juliet is only awarded 5 points is beyond me. 

I originally assumed this was an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, maybe even a version translated into Modern English, but no, it's one of the Folger Library editions, which (as my sister says) are the best versions of Shakespeare's plays to read. 

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I also cannot fathom how Midnight Sun has more points than The Iliad, as well as The Odyssey. This isn't just me ranking on the Twilight Saga either. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is worth 44 points. I loved Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when I first read it a few years back. 

This book is 870 pages long (to date, it is the longest book I've ever read), however I can guarantee that the level of difficulty for The Iliad and The Odyssey are higher and more complicated and maybe even confusing. The Iliad and The Odyssey are each awarded 25 and 24 points, respectively. 

I have not actually read The Iliad, nor have I read The Odyssey. However, I think I'm fairly knowledgeable in these poems seeing as I've researched Greek mythology for years just because I wanted to. I've read passages from them, and the language (as far as difficulty) is far superior than that of Midnight Sun and Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix. 

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I don't know why the AR points system seems to be based on a book's thickness rather than its difficulty in vocabulary and content, but I guess that's just another mystery of the world that I'll never be able to figure out. 

That's it for this post! I hope you enjoyed it! 

Until next time, 

Lexi K🖌