Welcome
Our new Renaissance Place edition of Accelerated Reader still helps you motivate and monitor students’ guided independent reading practice, but now the program is even easier to use. This document explains how to do common tasks and will help you get started quickly, whether you are already familiar with Accelerated Reader, or are brand new to it.
If your Welcome screen looks like the one below, you have Accelerated Reader Renaissance Place. On the Welcome screen, click your appropriate user group category (Student, Teacher/
Administrator, Parent) and log in with the user name and password you got from your administrator. Note: The program ensures that users access only their approved areas, regardless of the login link selected.
C O N T E N T S
Welcome . . . 1
Navigation . . . 2
Move Around in the Program . . . 3
Reports . . . 4
Generate Reading Practice Reports . . . 4
Class Record Books . . . 6
View Records and Reprint a TOPS Report . . . 7
Set Reading Practice Goals. . . 8
Edit Reader Certification Goals . . . 9
Quizzes . . . 10
Take a Sample Quiz or Edit Quiz Information . . . 10
Preferences . . . 12
School: TOPS Report Printing . . . 12
Classroom: Edit TWI Setting for Individual Student . . . 13
Classroom: Assign Other Reading Series . . . 14
Reading Resources . . . 15
Get Resources to Guide Your Implementation . . . 15
Find Useful Forms and Charts . . . 16
Student Application. . . 17
Find/Take a Quiz . . . 17
View Points and Goals . . . 18
Key Tasks for
Accelerated Reader Renaissance Place
®Click one of these
links to log in.
Renaissance Place Home Page
Navigation
Renaissance Place works like a website, so you can access your Renaissance Place products from one convenient home page (shown below).
Click Log Out in the upper right corner of any screen when you are finished using the program.
If you need help with classroom practices or the software, Reading Resources (discussed in more detail on page 15) is a great place to start.
Here, under the Accelerated
Reader tab, you’ll find links to
the areas where you complete
key software tasks.
Don’t use your browser buttons to navigate.
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Move Around in the Program
A few navigation tips are important for moving around in the Renaissance Place edition of Accelerated Reader.
1. To move to different screens or areas in the program, always use the links and buttons in the main body of the screen you are working with. These links and buttons are set up so screens stay current with your changes as you move about, while the Back and Forward buttons on your browser are not.
2. Look at the yellow bar at the top of a screen to see where you have been in the software. To return to an area, just click on its name in the list. (In the screen below, click Home to return to the Home page.)
3. Click links in the blue task bar on the left to get to other main areas quickly.
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Main Reports Screen
Reports
Accelerated Reader reports help you monitor and manage your students’ guided independent reading. You can get to the main Reports screen, shown below, by clicking Reports from the
Accelerated Reader tab on the Home page. The table on this screen lists all the report categories and their descriptions.
Note: The forms and charts that were in the Reports section of the desktop program can now be accessed from Reading Resources (see page 15).
Click any report category to see a list of all the reports you can generate for that category.
Generate Reading Practice Reports
Reading Practice Reports, especially the Diagnostic and Student Record Reports, are the ones you’ll use most frequently for monitoring students’ daily work.
1. Click Reading Practice on the main Reports screen (shown above).
2. On the next screen, view a report with the default settings by clicking the report name.
–OR–
Click Customize in the Options column to customize a report’s default settings. Customization options may include selecting classes or students, setting up the reporting period, and choosing how to group information.
3. You can view your report on the screen, or print it using the
Acrobat Reader Print button (shown on page 5).
Don’t use your browser button to print a report. You will get a blank page.
Click the Acrobat Reader
Print button to print a report.
Main Class Record Books Screen
Always click Set after choosing a class or school.
These are the different record books you can access from this screen.
Class Record Books
In the Class Record Books area, you can view detailed, on-screen records of the quizzes your students have taken and the goals they are working toward. You can also edit quiz records, goals, and certifications; work with teams; and manage your students’
points records.
To get to the main Class Record Books screen, shown below,
click Class Record Books from the Accelerated Reader tab on the
Home page.
3. Review the student’s record (below). Click TOPS in any row to produce a TOPS Report for a quiz the student took.
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You can also edit students’ quiz records on this screen. Find the record you want to edit and click Edit in the Action column.
Choose a different student within the class here.
View Records and Reprint a TOPS Report
The Class Record Book for Reading Practice Quizzes is the one you’ll go to most often to monitor students’ work. You can view records for your classes and more detailed quiz records for each student in a class.
1. From the main Class Record Books screen (shown on page 6), choose your school and class, and click Set. Then click Reading Practice Quizzes.
2. On the next screen (below), review students’ recent quiz results or click the name of a student to see all of his quiz results.
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The table on this screen shows the goals that have been set.
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Set Reading Practice Goals
Setting goals with students helps individualize reading practice, encourage self-directed learning, and promote reading growth. For each student, you can set goals for average percent correct, points earned, and average book level.
Before you can edit reading practice goals, you must select a marking period.
1. From the main Class Record Books screen (shown on page 6), choose your school and class, and then click Reading Practice Goals.
2. On the next screen (below), click Select Marking Periods to choose the marking period for which you’d like to set students’ goals.
Once your marking period is set, you can edit goals for one or all of your students.
3. Click Edit Student Goals to edit goals for the class.
–OR–
Click a student’s name to edit the goals for that student.
4. You should set all three goals—Average Percent Correct, Points,
and Average Book Level— for each student by selecting or
typing each goal in the fields on the next screen. Click Save
when you are finished.
Edit Reader Certification Goals
Reader certification levels provide motivating benchmarks for students. Set certification goals to encourage and acknowledge students’ continual progress.
Note: Access more information about certification goals and other advanced implementation topics from the Reading Resources area, discussed on page 15.
1. From the main Class Record Books screen (shown on page 6), choose your school and class, and then click Reading Practice Certifications.
2. On the next screen (below), click a student’s name.
The symbols in the Status column are defined on the left.
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3. Click Edit or New Goal on the next screen. Enter the goal and
date started, and click Save.
Quizzes
In the Quizzes area, you can view and manage all the Accelerated Reader quizzes available for your students. Get to the main Quizzes screen, shown below, by clicking Quizzes from the Accelerated Reader tab on the Home page.
Main Quizzes Screen
Click a quiz type to view a list of available quizzes.
The following tasks focus on Reading Practice Quizzes—the most common type—but you can also perform these tasks for the other quiz types.
Take a Sample Quiz or Edit Quiz Information
If you want to see how a specific quiz is presented to students, you can sample it. You can also edit some quiz information, such as book interest level.
1. From the main Quizzes screen (shown above), click Reading Practice.
2. On the next screen (below), search for the quiz based on the full or partial book title, quiz number, or author. Then click Select next to your quiz.
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Enter a book title, author, or
quiz number, and click Search
to find your quiz.
3. On the next screen (below), click Take a Sample Quiz if you’d like to see a quiz.
–OR–
Click Edit Selected Quiz Information to change information about book level, fiction/nonfiction, interest level, or quiz status.
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You can change this so students are
not allowed to take the quiz. Click
Edit Selected Quiz Information.
Main Preferences Screen
Preferences
Preferences determine how the software will work for your school and classroom. School preferences affect all the classes in the school and require an administrator password to make changes. Classroom preferences affect only the class you have selected.
Get to the main Preferences screen, shown below, by clicking Preferences from the Accelerated Reader tab of the Home page. The tables on this screen show the preferences you can set school-wide and by classroom.
School: TOPS Report Printing
This setting determines if TOPS Reports automatically print for students after they take quizzes. Many schools find it helpful to set this preference school-wide.
1. On the main Preferences screen (shown above), click Student Quizzing in the School Preferences table.
2. On the next screen (shown on page 13), click Edit Student Quizzing.
3. For each quiz type on the next screen, select when you want TOPS reports to print. Click Save when you are finished.
To view or edit preferences,
click the preference type in
the school or classroom list.
Classroom: Edit TWI Setting for Individual Student
Depending on the TWI setting, the program asks students how each book was read (To, With, or Independently) or always marks books as Read Independently. Because students read at different levels, you may want to set this preference differently for each student. Note: TWI Monitoring needs to be turned on in the School Preferences before you can set it for the students in your classes.
1. On the main Preferences screen (shown on page 12), click Individual Student Settings in the Classroom Preferences table.
2. On the next screen (below), click Edit TWI Settings.
This screen shows how the preferences are currently set.
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3. On the next screen, choose the setting for each student or scroll to the bottom to make everyone’s setting the same. Click Save
Symbols in the Quiz Type column are defined on the left.
See step 2 on page 12.
Classroom: Assign Other Reading Series
If you want to use quizzes aligned to major textbook series, you must assign the series to your class before students can quiz.
1. On the main Preferences screen (shown on page 12), click Other Reading Series in the Classroom Preferences table.
2. On the next screen (below), click Edit Other Reading Series.
3. On the next screen, check the box next to each reading series that you want to assign to your class; then, click Add.
Click Save when you are finished.
This screen shows the Other Reading Series assigned to this class.
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Main Reading Resources Screen
Reading Resources
The Reading Resources area contains printable materials to help you implement best classroom practices with Accelerated Reader.
You can get to the main Reading Resources screen, shown below, by clicking Reading Resources from the Accelerated Reader tab of the Home page.
Get Resources to Guide Your Implementation
From the main Reading Resources screen (shown above), click
Classroom Resources to Get Started (the resulting screen is shown below) –OR–
Classroom Resources to Advance Your Implementation.
The forms and charts you can get to from this screen were in the Reports section of the desktop program.
Click any resource to get
the printable document.
Find Useful Forms and Charts
Many commonly used resources can be found by clicking Forms and Charts from the main Reading Resources screen (shown at the top of page 15). A few of these include:
1. Goal-Setting Chart
2. Reader Certification Levels and Criteria 3. Student Reading Logs
After choosing a resource, print it using the Acrobat Reader Print button (as shown in the report screen on page 5).
Spanish forms and charts can also be found on this screen.
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Student Home Page
Student Application
Students using Accelerated Reader can take quizzes, print certain reports, and view their goals.
When students log in, they click Student on the Welcome screen (shown on page 1), and enter their user name and password.
The Student Home page, shown below, appears, listing the tasks students can perform.
Find/Take a Quiz
After students finish a book, they take the quiz on a computer.
1. Click Take a Quiz on the Student Home page (shown above), and then click the quiz type.
2. On the next screen (below), search for the quiz based on the full or partial book title, quiz number, or author.
3. Click the correct quiz. If the computer asks how the book was
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This screen shows progress toward assigned goals for each marking period.
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Accelerated Reader, Renaissance Place, Better Data, Better Learning, Renaissance Learning, the Accelerated products design, and the Sunburst design are registered trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc. TOPS is a common-law trademark of Renaissance Learning, Inc.
Adobe, the Adobe logo, and Acrobat Reader are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
© 2004 by Renaissance Learning, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
This publication is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. This document may be reproduced only by staff members in schools that have purchased or are considering purchase of a license for Renaissance Place software. For more information, contact:
Renaissance Learning, Inc.
P.O. Box 45016
Madison, WI 53744-5016 (800) 200-4848
www.renlearn.com
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