This document discusses how Accelerated Reader (AR) supports the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. It emphasizes the Common Core's focus on increasing students' independent reading of complex, grade-appropriate texts. AR provides over 147,000 quizzes on fiction and nonfiction titles to support this goal. The document also discusses how AR helps students build vocabulary and reading skills aligned to text complexity benchmarks. Research shows AR is an effective program for improving reading achievement when properly implemented.

1. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Jennifer Burns
Renaissance Learning
Jennifer.burns@renlearn.com
1-877-985-8100

2. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
At the Heart of CCS
College and Career Readiness Gap

3. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
College and Career Readiness

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Publishers’ Criteria for CCS in ELA
“WE NEED MATERIALS THAT HELP US MARKEDLY INCREASE THE
AMOUNT OF INDEPENDENT READING DONE BY STUDENTS.”
STANDARD 10. READ AND COMPREHEND COMPLEX
LITERARY AND INFORMATIONAL TEXTS INDEPENDENTLY AND
PROFICIENTLY.

5. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Common Core says: “Children at the
kindergarten and grade 1 levels
should be expected to read texts
independently that have been
specifically written to correlate to
their reading level.

6. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
T-W-I
Common Core says: “Children at the
kindergarten and grade 1 levels
should be expected to read texts
independently that have been
specifically written to correlate to
their reading level. Many titles not
read independently can be read
along with a teacher or that are read
aloud to students to

7. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
T-W-I
Common Core says: “Children at the
kindergarten and grade 1 levels
should be expected to read texts
independently that have been
specifically written to correlate to
their reading level. Many titles not
read independently can be read
along with a teacher or that are read
aloud to students to build
knowledge and cultivate a joy in
reading.”

8. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Significantly more emphasis
on nonfiction.

9. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR Enterprise
66,000
Non-Fiction
Titles 147,000
AR Quiz
Titles
http://kansas.bookconnect.com/
Common Core Standards challenge students
to perform skills within increasingly complex
texts at all grade levels.

10. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR and Nonfiction
AR Quizzes are an efficient method to monitor and manage what
students are reading, text complexity, and the amount they are
reading. 2006 study by ACT, and cited in CCSS Appendix A.

11. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
The Staircase of
Complexity

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Text Complexity Grade Bands
These ranges provide guidance on materials appropriate for
INSTRUCTIONAL USE with students in each grade bank and are not based
on a student’s individual reading level.

13. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
IL: MG+
ATOS: 8.3
Nonfiction
IL: LG IL: UG
ATOS: 3.5 ATOS: 10.0
Nonfiction Nonfiction
ATOS and Interest levels represent a massive collection
of text complexity information

14. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Text Complexity Measures
ATOS Lexile
Based on Based on
• Word length • Word frequency
• Word grade level • Sentence length
IL: UG
ATOS: 5.6
• Sentence length
Fiction • Book length
ATOS for Books
ATOS for Text Analysis
http://www.renlearn.com/
ATOS for Text
atos/analyze.aspx?type=3

15. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Text Complexity Measures
• Measure of Text Difficulty – Gates Foundation Research – 2.1.12
• Supplement jointly released by the Council of Chief State School Officers
and the National Governors Association on the corestandards.org – 8.17.12
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5 ATOS
0.4 Lexile
0.3
http://www.renl
0.2
earn.com/about
us/pressreleases
0.1
/2012/ATOS_CC
SS_Supplement_
0
0817.pdf
CC Exemplars State Tests Gate-MacGinitie MMetrics Oasis SAT 9 Passages
Passages Passages
CONCLUSION: ALL of the metrics were reliably, and often highly, correlated with
grade level and student performance-based measures of text difficulty across a
variety of text sets, and across a variety of reference measures.

16. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Vocabulary Acquisition
Initially, children readily learn
words from oral conversation
because such conversations are
context rich in ways that aid in
vocabulary acquisition: in
discussions, a small set of words
(accompanied by gesture and
intonation) is used with great
frequency to talk about a narrow
range of situations children are
exposed to on a day-to-day basis.

17. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Vocabulary Acquisition
• Yet as children reach school age, new words are
introduced less frequently in conversation, and
consequently vocabulary acquisition eventually
stagnates by grade 4 or 5 unless students acquire
additional words from written context.
• Written language contains literally thousands of words
more than are typically used in conversational
language. Yet writing lacks the interactivity and
nonverbal context that make acquiring vocabulary
through oral conversation relatively easy, which
means that purposeful and ongoing concentration on
vocabulary is needed.
(Hayes & Ahrens, 1988 in CCSS)

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Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G.
McKeown, and Linda Kucan
(2002, 2008)
• Tier 1 – “the words of everyday speech usually learned
in the early grades” (sad, run, dog and orange)

19. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G.
McKeown, and Linda Kucan
(2002, 2008)
• Tier 1 – “the words of everyday speech usually learned
in the early grades” (sad, run, dog and orange)
• Tier 2 – “far more likely to appear in written texts than
in speech” and “appear in all sorts of texts”
• Tier 3 – “specific to a domain or field of study (lava,
carburetor, legislature, circumference, aorta)” –” often explicitly
defined by the author of a text, repeatedly used, and
otherwise heavily scaffold (e.g., made a part of a
glossary)”

20. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G.
McKeown, and Linda Kucan (2002,
2008)
• Tier 1 – “the words of everyday speech usually learned in
the early grades” (sad, run, dog, orange)
 Tier 2 – “far more likely to appear in written texts than in
speech” and “appear in all sorts of texts” - High
Frequency/Multiple Meaning (replenish, distinction, injustice, and
words like - revolution which has a different meaning in Social Studies vs. Science)
VIDEO: http://engageny.org/resource/common-core-in-ela-literacy-shift-6-academic-
vocabulary/
• Tier 3 – “specific to a domain or field of study (lava, carburetor,
legislature, circumference, aorta)” –” often explicitly defined by the
author of a text, repeatedly used, and otherwise heavily
scaffold (e.g., made a part of a glossary)”

21. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR Vocabulary Quizzes
Student Routine
1. Select a book within ZPD
2. Get the list of vocabulary words
3. Review list daily before reading
4. Read the book
5. Review the vocabulary list
6. Take and pass Reading Practice Quiz
7. Take Vocabulary Practice Quiz

22. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Words on the List
• 5, 10, or 15 words for each book
• Same readability level as book or higher
• Used two or more times
• Significant to book’s meaning
• Interesting and useful in everyday
conversations

23. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR Vocabulary Quizzes
AV Quizzes heavily
populated with Tier-2
vocabulary.

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What about
students who
are behind?
Learning progressions hold the potential to
bridge instruction and assessment.

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Common Core State Standard
Initiative
“One promise of common state
standards is that over time they will
allow research on learning progressions
to inform and improve the design of
standards to a much greater extent than
is possible today.”
www.corestandards.org

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Core Progress for Reading
Dr. Margaret Heritage
National Center for
Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student
Testing at UCLA
“The first of its kind, the new mixed-method approach
used to develop the learning progression in reading has
made a contribution to the field of learning progression
development.” Dr. Margaret Haritage

27. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Renaissance Learning Core Progress for
Reading and Math – Research Based

28. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR and STAR Enterprise Together – At Last!
STAR Reading Enterprise individual ZPD scores are now automatically
imported into AR after students have taken the STAR assessment.

29. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
90 35 Z

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RESEARCH: In total, 170 research studies and
reviews support the effectiveness of
Accelerated Reader. Of these...
• 145 were led independently
• 30 are experimental or quasi-
experimental
• 26 have been published in peer-
reviewed journals
http://www.renlearn.com/ar/research.aspx

31. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
Reading often and reading well
is the essence of Accelerated Reader!
 Quality
APPLY
 Quantity
 Level

32. AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
AR IN THE COMMON CORE ERA
FOLLOW UP RESOURCES:
Kansas ELA and Literacy CCS Resources:
http://www.ksde.org/Default.aspx?tabid=4778
Engage New York Video Series – Education
Commissioner John King, David Coleman and Kate
Gerson explain every key aspect of Common Core
standards in depth:
http://engageny.org/resource/common-core-video-
Jennifer Burns
Renaissance Learning
series/
Jennifer.burns@renlearn.com
1-877-985-8100 Seamless transition to the Common Core Standards:
http://www.renlearn.com/ccss/default.aspx
MAKE THE BEST USE OF HIGH QUALITY RESOURCES YOU ALREADY OWN.