In order to make sure that Accelerated Reader data is reliable and accurate, quizzing should be closely monitored and done in a supportive environment. Because every school and student situation is different, Accelerated Reader has options that allow you to configure your school’s settings to determine what is the best fit for your implementation.
Important Considerations
As you work to set up the configuration that is best for your students, we encourage you to read the following considerations.
- Students could receive help on quizzes at home. While this assistance may be well-intentioned, it may mask a problem that a teacher would be able to identify if the child quizzed at school.
- When students quiz at home, they do not receive immediate feedback from their teachers, which is a recommended best practice.
- For the most accurate measurement of a child's comprehension level, students should be quizzing in a secure and monitored environment without the book, which is not guaranteed at home.
- When quizzing from home, students have more opportunities to copy the questions and answer choices for the purpose of sharing with others. It is very easy for students to share quiz information on the internet when this happens. Renaissance works hard to maintain the integrity of our quizzes and to discourage copyright violations.
- In Accelerated Reader, students should be spending the vast majority of their time reading books, not taking quizzes. Book reading (including reading in myON) can occur anytime, anywhere.
- If you're using Star assessments or Star Custom, be sure to adjust the Star IP restrictions, the Star monitor password preferences, and the date and time restrictions for Star assessments and for Star Custom to prevent students from accessing those assessments at home.
Allowing Quizzing from Home
There may also be reasons to allow quizzing from home, such as for homebound students who cannot attend school due to medical or emotional issues, when schools must close temporarily for health, building, or other reasons, or when a school or district conducts a summer reading program at a public library.
While quizzing from home may be necessary for some situations, it's also important to ensure that you have set students up for success. Use the Renaissance at Home Implementation Tips for Accelerated Reader to ensure the fidelity of your implementation.
Controls Available to Help Limit Quizzing from Home
If you decide not to allow quizzing from home, the most effective way to prevent students from quizzing at home is to restrict where students can take quizzes by setting IP restrictions. This is strongly recommended by Renaissance. To set IP Restrictions and apply them to Accelerated Reader, see Set Security Options.
When restrictions have been applied, students who log in from home will not see Accelerated Reader on their Renaissance Home page, so they cannot take quizzes. Note: Restrictions don't prevent student access to Renaissance Home Connect, where students can view their progress toward goals and the quizzes they have taken.
If you decide not to apply IP restrictions to Accelerated Reader and to let students access it from home, you can still restrict quizzing by doing the following:
- Set the Password Requirement preference to require the monitor password before quizzing. This will prevent students from taking a quiz unless a teacher or assistant enters the correct monitor password, which is set in the Monitor Password - Reading Quizzes preference.
- Set date and time restrictions for Accelerated Reader to prevent students from taking quizzes at times outside of the school day or on weekends. You can choose to allow teachers or assistants to override the restrictions as needed using the monitor password.
Reports That Help You Monitor Students' Quizzing Behavior
These Accelerated Reader reports can help you monitor students' quizzing behavior:
- The Quiz Takers Report can help you monitor reading trends across your students for popular books. While students naturally want to read what their fellow students are reading, monitor who has taken the quizzes and when, and note any unusual trends.
- The Student Performance Record Report or the Record Book can be used to look at all of the quizzes that a student has taken. Look for trends with specific students to see if they tend to quiz more on the weekends or in short bursts of time.
- If you have questions about a specific quiz, the TOPS Report includes the exact time when the quiz was taken. A TOPS Report can be viewed for each quiz. This information can be used if you need to dig into more details about a student's quizzing behaviors.
- If you are using myON and Accelerated Reader together, you can view the books each student has read within myON and see if they compare to the quizzes being taken in Accelerated Reader. (To view the books each student has read, select the student in your roster and make sure the first view is selected.)