AR How To's

This is a how-to guide for accessing the Accelerated Reader (AR) National List from the library or at home:

From home: 

     -Point your Internet browser to http://www.arbookfind.com

From the library:

     -Go to the card catalog and look on the left side of the screen for the "Other Resources" link:

-If you are on the computers in the YRR go to the "Reference Sites" tab at the top of the page:

Once you have clicked those links you will see the AR Logo which you can click on to get to the searchable list:

Now we look at actually searching the site for books:

You have now arrived at the AR National List website and will be presented with a screen that contains a selection area like this:

Once you have chosen you will be taken to a new screen that has a nice little title search box ready for you:

There are actually two other main methods for searching, and you can see those tabs at this point. There is the "Advanced Search" and the "Collections" methods. Collections is a wonderful tool to use but we are going to focus on advanced searching here because it is a more methodical approach.
After clicking on the "Advanced Search" tab you will be brought to a screen like this one:

Now that you are here the main thing that you need to do first is select an interest level from the drop down menu: (It will not perform a search without doing this)

You can then be even more specific about the reading levels you want to search for by adding the numerical values into the boxes below the interest level you just selected.

This works by deciding on a grade level (let's say 3^rd) and then the time frame of the year. For example a reading level of 3.0 to 3.5 in those boxes means that you need a level from the beginning of the 3^rd grade year to about five months into the 3^rd grade.

After you have selected the interest level you need then you can use the drop down boxes to select topics, subtopics, fiction or non-fiction and other criteria to narrow down your search.

Once you perform a search you will get a list of results that look like this:

As you can see there is lots of information in these results so lets break it down:

Row #	Description
1	Book Title
2	Book's Author
3	AR Quiz Number
4	Interest Level
5	Type of Quiz
6	Overall Reader Rating
7	General Description

(Notice that rows 4-6 have questions marks that you can click to get a description of what that information actually means)

Most schools have moved to using this national list, but be sure to check with you child's teacher or school librarian to make sure and get their list if they have not yet converted to this one.