On the Accelerated Reader 360 Home page, you can select a class or group to work with, find assignments, or use the links at the top to track (and score) student work, go to Dashboards to view results, or add content (your own skills practice assignments).
Selecting the Class or Group to Work With
First, select the link at the top of the page to choose which class or group you want to work with.
Then, select your school, teacher, and class or group. (Some of these selections may not be necessary if you are a teacher.) You can search the items in a column by clicking within that column and then typing Ctrl+F or control-F on the keyboard. Select Apply.
Finding Articles and Assignments for your Students
To find articles and assignments that you would like to use with your students, you can use the featured articles on this page, find articles by skills or standards, or find articles by topic and keyword.
Using Featured Articles
The main page for Instructional or Assigned Reading includes a list of featured articles. These tend to be new articles or articles that fit a specific theme.
Above the articles, check the levels that you want to see articles for: Elementary School (K-5), Middle School (6-8), and/or High School (9-12). If none (or all) of the boxes are checked, all of the featured articles will be listed.
The articles will be listed once for each skills practice assignment that is available.
Types of assignments that are available
Articles are usually listed more than once because each article typically has assignments for more than one skill. Skills Practice assignments require students to read the article, identify text that meets certain criteria (highlight and tag), answer a written Show You Know prompt, and take the quiz. These are the assignment types that are listed for Featured Articles.
Articles may also have assignments that simply require them to read the article and take a quiz. Some articles may also have the following assignments:
- Read Aloud assignments are intended to be used with students in grades K-2. Read Aloud assignments include activities that help you discuss the articles with students and model skills.
- Watch the Video to Learn More assignments have videos embedded to allow students to learn to use different mediums on a topic.
For each assignment, you will see the skill, grade, ATOS level and Lexile® Measure. (For the skill, the short name is shown, but you can select to see more information.)
To preview an assignment, select Preview. The assignment will open in a new tab in your browser, and you will see the assignment as a student would see it, starting with the assignment instructions, then the article, and then each assignment item (with the article text included for reference). To go on from one step to the next, select Next > or select one of the item numbers at the bottom of the page. Any work you do on the assignment will not be saved since you are previewing. On the last item, select Finish; then, select Finish again in the confirmation message. Select Close Window to close the tab when you are done.
Remember that Accelerated Reader 360 is still open in your original browser tab.
If you decide to use an assignment for the selected class or group, select Assign to the right of the assignment. Then, in the message that opens, choose Continue to confirm that you want to assign it to the class or group shown in the message. Finally, select OK when a message confirms that the assignment was created. The assignment will shortly appear in the Assignments list on the students' Home page; they can select it to open it and complete it.
You can see the featured articles that you have assigned in the AR 360 Instructional Practice Plan on the Track Student Work Dashboard. After students complete the assignment, you can see the results of their work and score their skills practice.
Finding Assignments by Skills or Standards
One of the buttons at the top of the page is called Find Articles by Skills or Standards. When you choose this button, you can select skills to work on, and if your students have taken Star tests, some of the skills are suggested based on their test data and the current point in the school year. You can also find skills by domain. Once you select skills, you will see the matching Accelerated Reader 360 assignments, and you can choose which to use; you may also be able to find and select other resources. This method of finding assignments also allows you to schedule when the assignments will first appear in your students' Assignments list.
Steps for finding assignments by skills and standards
Finding Assignments by Topics and Keywords
The second button at the top of the page is Find Articles by Topic and Keyword. When you choose this button, you can select the grades for which you want to find articles, and then you can either enter a keyword to search for or check the topics that you are interested in. You will see then see the matching Accelerated Reader 360 assignments, and you can choose which to use. As when you find articles by skill and standard, this method allows you to schedule when the assignments will first appear in your students' Assignments list.
Steps for finding assignments by topics and keywords
After you choose to find assignments by skills and standards or by topics and keywords, you can select the My Content tab to find article assignments that you have created.