Renaissance Accelerated Reader vs. Renaissance Star Assessments

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

Renaissance Star Assessments are great for students who already know English and know how to use a device, especially a tablet. The children can listen to the question, choose an answer, then move on to the next question. These assessments are less appropriate for students learning English as a second language. Since the questions are in English, and most students primarily speak another language, they do not understand the questions and get many of them wrong. As a result, they score low and it appears as if the child has not been learning when in fact the low score is due to a language barrier. I think there should also be some type of block to choosing an answer until after the question is presented because some children like to press answers before the question is finished and then try to move on. I think having the answers be unclickable before the question is finished would be a benefit for the children to pay more attention to the question.

• 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

• Renaissance Star Assessments gives me a look at each student as an overall reader.
• Renaissance Star Assessments shows me the areas of which my students are struggling.
• Renaissance Star Assessments is linked with Nearpod, so I can assign lessons based on what each student needs.
• Star CBM helps me see whether my students' fluency is improving or not.

Incentivized

• 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

• The graphs for each subject are not consistently the same. (ie. some graphs are by 5s and some are by 50s.) It's very confusing to read them.
• The questions are not rigorous enough for state standards.
• Different reports will show data that does not align. If 'state' is chosen, then all reports should show the same data. The Parent Report will show the child in 'green', but every sub-skill is in 'red'. That is super confusing for parents and teachers.
• All reports should be based on the same score, but they are not. It is like comparing apples to oranges on the same child.

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

Star Assessments and Renaissance is the best educational products at this time. They are found worldwide, easy to use and informational for districts teachers and families. Information will follow a student if they change districts and give previous information to new districts and teachers

Incentivized

I give Renaissance Accelerated Reader a great 10 in usability rating. I give this rating because overall the program is very easy to use and for the most part easy to understand. I am currently in my first year working in the library and with the teachers using the Renaissance Accelerated Reader program so there is still much to learn, but it has been an overall great experience so far. All of the data is easy to read and there is so much information to look over in case anything is missed or not understood. I have so far been very happy with the Renaissance Accelerated Reader program and what it has done for the students.

It is very user friendly and intuitive. I have had minimal training on the system and was able to access many of the features. I was able to easily create student accounts and set up testing for our students. I was able to find appropriate reports that provide the right data for our team and our parents.

I have not encountered any problems with availability

It’s wonderful

Quick loading, no issues.

Incentivized

I absolutely love this program

Incentivized

Renaissance Reader has a great support team, and generally, they are quick to respond when needed. The live chat tool is a life-saver when trying to get your problems solved in real-time. They also have a lot of online support articles that ensure that you can get your questions answered without necessarily having to use the live chat during the school day.

I have been very happy with the support. By phone or email I have found the support very good and they get back to me quickly. This survey however is wa6 overdone, expecting me to come up with 50 words on each question. It becomes very repetitive and very laborious.

I just feel this way.

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

When presenters show us how to use the program they need to have a full class size of data. During training, there were only 5 or 6 sample students. Classes are more like 25 and that makes the training more realistic to have similar data to what we will use.

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.

Renaissance Star Math Assessment provided a proven data collection tool. This was also being used at the lower grades in our district, so it made sense to continue with its use to provide a more reliable and accurate picture of our students entering the middle school. The continuation of the data trail should continue to help their overall growth.

Incentivized

Because students can take tests on varying book levels.

Great overall program with lots of advice in implementation

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

• It has positively impacted student time to learn by reducing testing times and allowing more time for instruction
• The reduced testing time also positively impacted our schools by freeing the computer labs and making the planning and creation of testing schedules easier. This has allowed more computer lab use for education and learning.
• It has negatively impacted the time and effort required by support staff, administrators, and some teachers by requiring more time spent on looking up results or going to multiple spots and manually combining results because a larger group couldn't easily be made.
• Another negative impact on our district is that it has also taxed those few educators with more technical ability and data knowledge moreso than other programs. The need to create/summarize/write programs to deal with full, raw data export files since the smaller, more specific reports and summaries are not downloadable into a format that can be manipulated easily (pdf only, not csv exports), and to constantly back up data exports and to have to search through them when the State wants results on past students etc.