Relias Learning Management System vs. Renaissance Accelerated Reader

Good for an organization who are in health care and in ABA. Not so good everyone else. There are courses specific to the industry, however, the glitches and the lack of support from the customer service staff makes it hard to recommend the product.

Incentivized

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

• The gamification elements are fun, and our staff enjoys decorating their crests.
• The ability to personalize our reminders ensures that compliance stays top-of-mind.
• User-friendly doesn't do it justice - zero training is needed on how to use the system because it's so intuitive!

Incentivized

• If used correctly, Accelerated Reader helps students grow with their reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. I advise teachers to have one on one conversations with students when setting goals (allow students to have input) so that the students are given more responsibility to achieve their own goals.
• Renaissance's online chat/customer service is outstanding. They can usually answer my questions and do so in an understandable manner. They seem to be willing to help and will follow through if necessary.
• There are many reports that Accelerated Reader administrators can use to help decipher the data created from their students taking Accelerated Reader quizzes.

Incentivized

• The UI needs to be modernized and more user-friendly for non-technical individuals.
• Courses need to be updated with more engaging content. Extremely painful to read the course materials for hour long.
• The platform can be upgraded to increase speed and navigation.

Incentivized

• Creating Spanish reports similar to the ones accessed in English.
• Simplifying the way books students can find an AR quiz. It does not find books if students are missing a "question mark" or "exclamation mark".
• Deleting a quiz when a student enters the wrong book title and begins a quiz. It has been difficult to remove a quiz and the quiz appears even after the monitor password has been entered.

RMLS have become an important component of our agency's support systems. It provides consistent context for education and trainings as well as being flexible to allow staff to access it on their time. We have found many of the content sessions to be very useful for staff development and supportive of our overall agency goals and strategies.

Incentivized

[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.

Incentivized

I enjoy the ease of setup. It has a large course library and selection filter to choose by
profession and/or module type. Even though it has a generic user
interface and navigating tools, but it gets the job done. It offers the
basic and simple delivery, tracking, and reporting.

Incentivized

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.

I have not encountered any problems with availability

Quick loading, no issues.

Incentivized

Relias staff has been accommodating whenever support is needed. When Relias staff are at booths at conferences, they also engage very positively and are available for support. It seems as if the Relias staff really care about the work they do and the product they offer.

Incentivized

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.

It was very easy to implement. It's cloud based, so the most difficult part was getting users loaded.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Relias has significantly more and higher quality training courses and video offerings than any competitor in the space. At the end of the day, it's about the caregivers receiving as much information they can to be successful.

STAR assessments work well with [Renaissance] Accelerated Reader. The STAR assessment can inform students what material they will be able to comprehend and help guide teachers when they are trying to help students find books to read. STAR assessments also help teachers focus on comprehension and vocabulary skills which then lends to help students understand what they are reading and utilize [Renaissance] Accelerated Reader.

Incentivized

Because students can take tests on varying book levels.

• We've been able to save money on purchasing outside trainings from vendors
• We've been able to retain our supervisors and managers because we can provide them in-depth, company specific training through the platform
• We've reduce labor hours to hold in person trainings and instead push trainings out through Relias Learning Management System wherever appropriate

Incentivized

• I have seen a positive impact using AR by allowing us to track independent reading time more effectively.
• We can analyze student data in ways that would be either too time-consuming or too difficult to track on our own.
• Student engagement has increased when students can use their ZPDs to help find books that are in a readable range for them.

Incentivized