Accelerated Reader, at its heart, is simple

With Accelerated Reader, a student reads a book, takes an online quiz, and gets immediate feedback. Students respond to regular feedback and are motivated to make progress with their reading skills. Together with Star Reading and myON by Renaissance, it forms a complete reading practice and assessment solution for students of all ages and abilities.

Accelerated Reader in action

Valuable data

Accelerated Reader gives teachers the information they need to monitor students’ reading practice and make informed decisions to guide their future learning. A comprehensive set of reports reveals how much a student has been reading, at what level of complexity, and how well they have understood what they have read. Vocabulary growth and literacy skills are also measured, giving teachers insight into how well students have responded to reading schemes and class instruction.

How Accelerated Reader works

Motivational quizzes

Because students receive regular feedback from Accelerated Reader, teachers and librarians are given many opportunities to praise students for their successes and to discuss with them what they have been reading.There are four different types of Accelerated Reader quiz: Reading Practice, Recorded Voice, Vocabulary Practice, and Literacy Skills.

Appropriate challenge

Pupils develop reading skills most effectively when they read appropriately challenging books – difficult enough to keep them engaged but not so difficult that they become frustrated. This is their ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD). Text complexity is determined by the ATOS formula, which uses the text of an entire books to inform the calculation rather than just a sample as with some other formulae. As pupils are retested, their ZPD ranges increase and broaden so they continue to read suitably challenging literature.

Extensive choice

Accelerated Reader gives students significantly greater choice in levelled books and quizzes than any comparable reading programme. Over 37,000 reading practice quizzes are available on books from over 300 publishers and imprints. Independent of any publishing interests and suitable for students of primary and secondary age, AR ensures that there are plenty of books to interest every reader available on the programme.

Positive attitudes

The National Literacy Trust’s second independent research report into the reading habits of students using Accelerated Reader has been published. “Children and young people who use Accelerated Reader tend to enjoy reading more, do it more often and think more positively about reading than their peers who do not use Accelerated Reader. They are also more likely to see a link between reading and their successes.”

Dr Christina Clark, National Literacy Trust