Renaissance Accelerated Reader vs. Wonderlic Select

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

Gave us GREAT information we wouldn't otherwise have had! This assessment is rooted in real research, holds up over time and helps get a picture of a candidate before they actually show up for work. The information in this assessment may help the employer understand what to expect in a given situation. It may also help them to understand where there may be a mismatch or disconnect for an individual in a given job. What great intel to have going into an employment relationship!

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

• Gives us a Cognitive score. Candidates must be moderate in smarts. Nothing makes up for smarts but smarts isn't all.
• Gives us a sense of their Motivation. Recent applicant for a graphic designer job wasn't motivate by jobs requiring "artistic expression." That raised some eyebrows.
• And allows the candidate to describe what they like and don't like or their Personality. This is important to me as a supervisor. Allows me to consider whether I would be comfortable supervising a confrontational person, for instance.
• The instrument has proven to be very predictive and I've used it for 5 years. For 20 years prior to that, I used the Wonderlic paper-based assessment (cognitive only).

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.

• It would be helpful to have more interpretive reports; integrate some of the scales if possible - do scores on one scale have implications for scores on another? Is there any relationship between the scales? I enjoy the anchors showing people with high/low scores may demonstrate certain characteristics; additional elaboration/narrative might be helpful.
• Better understanding of the scales and why certain scales matter on some jobs, not others. What does it mean when a score has/does not have bearing on that particular job? Why/Why not?
• Maybe include examples of the types of positions for which the scale scores have meaning beyond the particular job in question. This might help with succession planning and development planning.

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 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.

Very friendly and intuitive user interface. it takes a lot of work to make something simple and effective. I have used many different software products over the years. Most products suffer greatly from "design by committee" and "design by non-users." WonScore Pre-Employment Testing shows no evidence of these pitfalls. I would fight against changes to any other tool.

Incentivized

I have not encountered any problems with availability

Quick loading, no issues.

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.

Very little support needed after the initial startup. Has help system built in. Can't remember last time I had an issue for which I needed support.

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

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

I migrated with Wonderlic from their paper system to the Wonscore [Pre-Employment Testing (formerly Wonderlic Employee & Customer Surveys)], so I didn't have to do a lot of compare/contrast with other products (not that many on the market all those many years ago).

Incentivized

Because students can take tests on varying book levels.

• 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

• We have lowered testing-cost dramatically.
• WonScore Pre-Employment Testing has lowered our cost of training of turnover.
• It takes very little, if any, training of the administrator of the WonScore to get valuable insights.

Incentivized