As a product of Accelerated Reader, I can definitely see what the author was talking about. After I stopped having AR, the thought of not having points did diminish my motivation to read new books. I was always told what to read and how fast I needed to read it and then took a pointless test to get points. Half of the time I would not read the whole book, I'd only read until I thought I had all the information I needed to take the test. Accelerated reader is a good tool to get students to read. However, the transition from AR to not having AR hurts students because they no longer have incentive to read. We as teachers must learn how to give students options on what to read and to integrate reading into our curriculum.
The problem with integrating books into our curriculum is that the book becomes the curriculum for our subject. You should definitely use books, but it's the delivery of the book that matters most. It is emphasized in our program to steer away from the textbook as the curriculum, but use it as a resource only. When reading a book in the classroom, we must be careful to make it a resource or as a connection to the topics or themes we're teaching and not to make it the curriculum itself. The flow of reading is also another important aspect of reading in the classroom. While we must be careful not to sacrifice the flow of reading a novel in a class, we must be sure to not leave the slower readers behind. While you might not break the book up into single chapters, there must be some sort of benchmarks that students must either meet or succeed in order to scaffold the book for slower readers. This way, students who read faster can go ahead and progress and not have their flow interrupted by having to wait on other students. The use of a novel in a classroom, especially a social studies classroom can be really beneficial when used the right way. It takes careful planning while taking all of your students strengths and weaknesses into consideration. While all students won't read at the same place, when things are spaced out in ways that don't affect flow, it can still be beneficial to your students to read novels that are course related in order to spark students' reading.
