Renaissance Accelerated Reader® is designed to save educators time by empowering them with Learnalytics® to make differentiating independent and close reading practice effortless – all while maintaining the flexibility necessary to fit within existing classroom routines. Students are engaged in reading self-selected authentic books and articles.
Short comprehension quizzes and built-in close reading practice activities, combined with automatic and educator feedback, keep students…
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TalentSorter
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
TalentSorter is a cloud-based candidate assessment tool that aims to put ease and accuracy behind hiring decisions. Seeing the data from an applicant's assessment is like putting on X-Ray glasses – it goes beyond their resume so you know if they will thrive and perform in the role, meet company standards and gel with team. The vendor states the results are: - Reduce time sorting resumes - Don't waste time interviewing the wrong people - Increase on-the-job…
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
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.
We decided to have a few prior employees who were our best, and who remained the longest - ultimately a perfect fit for us, complete the TalentSorter questionaire. Both former employees scored very high and were spot on in meeting our unique criteria that TalentSorter allowed us to set up. That reverse approach really impressed us and also confirmed we had set our criteria correctly to help us sort through applicants. We now require all applicants go through TalentSorter before we will even look at their resume.
TalentSorter took the five character traits that Fortune 500 companies deem most valuable and added many more to help us get a real sense of the individual. It allowed us to gain a much more complete image of the whole person, not just what they want to reveal in their resume, but what is revealed by the questions TalentSorter poses to them and are rated based on the criteria we select as priority.
TalentSorter offers a unique approach to screening applicants using what they call "Predictive Human Analytics" its what we found to be a products that helps find a fit / match between employee and employer values and priorities - with the objective of increasing the quality of the work experience for all. Now that we did the favourite ex-employee test we are confident we will attract the right people and increase retention.
Talent Sorter offers everything in one bucket with a dashboard that ranks best fit candidates, this really assisted our sorting where we focused mainly on the highest ranking candidates. And it captures resumes and ranks intelligence, provides a summary - its a genuine time saver and organizes all applicant material.
As an side we discovered that TalentSorter works like a pre-screen for applicants. The very process eliminates "window shoppers" and the like, who are broadcasting their resume to any and all job postings without consideration.
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.
I am new to TalentSorter and still discovering all its incredible benefits to our recruitment process, so at this stage in time I have no criticism for improvement.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
TalentSorter has reduced the number of inappropriate applicants. Im able to tailor each job posted.
It scores and ranks applicants with the highest fit to our criteria.
It helps me be better organized and serves as an excellent interview tool, affording me to ask deeper questions and explore where that individual is at and where they are headed.
We are finding better suited individuals, where in the past we may have overlooked them because our sorting was based solely on resume content relevancy, now we are looking at people with the best fit and those who are a fit are happier, more engaged, find passion, pride and are easier to train and can take pride and find passion in their role.
