Interestingly, our school also uses Raz-Kids, which is an online system that allows reading and listening to books along with comprehension questions. They can choose books from the assigned level, or choose any book at their level or above. Both of my twins regularly choose books in raz-kids that are well above the DRA level assessed by the school and do well on the quizzes. I am somewhat looking forward to the next parent/teacher conference because this should be an interesting point of discussion.
DS actually really likes Raz-Kids. I'm not sure why. But the school does it differently where the teacher assigns them books from their guided reading level, and then they have to read all 16 or whatever books and pass the quizzes before they can move onto the next level. So DS had to wade through a lot of books that were way too easy, and even now that he's whipped through about 6 levels in a couple months, he says it's still too easy. I don't make him listen to the audio, so he "fast forwards" through that part so the system will count it as done.
The quality of some of the books definitely isn't great (esp. the fiction books!) but I figure at least DS will get in some practice with dumb multiple choice reading tests, which will be so important as we move forward. No way to get into gifted programs here unless he does well on computerized reading tests.
