Relias Learning Management System vs. Renaissance Accelerated Reader

Good for an organization who are in health care and in ABA. Not so good everyone else. There are courses specific to the industry, however, the glitches and the lack of support from the customer service staff makes it hard to recommend the product.

Incentivized

I have found Renaissance Accelerated Reader to be well-suited for elementary readers. I don't have experience using it with high school students; however, I know that for our elementary readers, there are no shortages of tests available. Our students can read trade books, articles within the program, or even stories from our textbooks and take tests on them

• The gamification elements are fun, and our staff enjoys decorating their crests.
• The ability to personalize our reminders ensures that compliance stays top-of-mind.
• User-friendly doesn't do it justice - zero training is needed on how to use the system because it's so intuitive!

Incentivized

• Automatically calculating ZPD ranges. Student level ranges are automatically calculated within the system to ensure that students are correctly choosing the most appropriate books for them.
• Easy goal setting. Whether you want to set a blanket goal based on 20 minutes per day of reading time for the class, or you want to individually set goals up to an hour a day, AR makes it very easy to manage and set goals for your entire classroom. Goals can be adjusted as needed easily as well.
• Comprehension monitoring through testing. I can easily see which students are struggling on comprehension through AR book quizzes. From student scores, I can either motivate students who are rushing through books to slow down and take time to thoroughly read, or I can help students who are possibly struggling to read harder books with specific strategies that will benefit them the most. Without the testing feature of AR, I would have a lot more work to check how students are doing on their independent reading.
• Data that is easy to understand and share with students. From either running a report on the entire class or school to just a specific student, AR makes data tracking easy. I can share reports with students and have detailed discussions about their progress towards meeting their goals or steps to take to overcome reading challenges they are currently having.

Incentivized

• Reporting is abominable, hasn't been updated in over 4 years.
• Organization of courses, modules, training plans, skills checklists, manuals, and tests— a lot of options and very challenging to differentiate
• Their mobile application is not user-friendly, it crashes, doesn't load certain courses, doesn't play audio on other ones, and has very poor performance.

• Lately, Accelerated Reader has been adding "New Reports" which would help single class users such as a teacher with one class. But for a person with administrative rights, it creates a bit of a hassle to get the information needed at times.
• Cost - Accelerated Reader is expensive. For the price paid, I feel Renaissance should include some features instead of having additional fees paid.

Incentivized

RMLS have become an important component of our agency's support systems. It provides consistent context for education and trainings as well as being flexible to allow staff to access it on their time. We have found many of the content sessions to be very useful for staff development and supportive of our overall agency goals and strategies.

Incentivized

[Renaissance] Accelerated Reader is a great way to track student progress, motivate students to read, and measure their comprehension. Accelerated reader gives both teachers and students immediate feedback. There are countless options of books for students and can help increase student interest in books and improve students' reading ability.

Incentivized

It's super easy to use.

Incentivized

I would say that Accelerated Reader is a pretty user-friendly tool. The platform is easily used by teachers, administrators, and students of all grade levels and technical abilities. That being said, it would be nice to see some tweaks to the user interface to make it even easier for everyone to navigate.

I have not encountered any problems with availability

Quick loading, no issues.

Incentivized

Relias staff has been accommodating whenever support is needed. When Relias staff are at booths at conferences, they also engage very positively and are available for support. It seems as if the Relias staff really care about the work they do and the product they offer.

Incentivized

Renaissance Accelerated Reader is a program I have used with students for 9 years. It is so flexible and easy to use! I have seen the amazing benefits and an increase in the minutes my students read each day. I look forward to using this program next year and learning more about how it can help increase reading in our school.

Incentivized

It was very easy to implement. It's cloud based, so the most difficult part was getting users loaded.

Incentivized

Extensive training on Ren Place is necessary. There are a myriad of reports that we need help understanding. I have joined Ren Royals and have learned a lot from that support piece.

Incentivized

Relias has significantly more and higher quality training courses and video offerings than any competitor in the space. At the end of the day, it's about the caregivers receiving as much information they can to be successful.

I have not used any of the products listed. However, AR has been my choice of product. My school system choice this product because it interfaces well with all other reading and testing programs that have been purchased. It is an excellent product, but that is a given since it was developed by a teacher to address a problem that all educators deal with (How do you help a struggling reader best?). AR is the answer for me.

Because students can take tests on varying book levels.

• We have been able to manage a large amount of training for a diverse work force more efficiently.
• We are adding functionality to be able to use the system to circulate materials to our workforce where documentation of knowledge/understanding is needed,

Incentivized

• The goal of AR is for kids to enjoy books, spread their wings, and experience a variety of literature & genres. Children need copious amounts of reading to become good readers. Incorporating Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 into our day sets a purpose for reading and holds children accountable.
• Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 is research based. The single biggest predictor of academic success is time spent reading. This program allows for that.
• Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 allows for scaffolding of reading material to get the kids into more challenging material. This program allows children to be successful and build on their strengths.
• Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 empowers students to take ownership in the learning process. It gives them a voice.
• Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 is a program that lets students practice and apply skills and strategies learned during mini lessons and strategy-group instruction.

Incentivized