No description available.

The study investigated the antecedents to disposition to trust with regard to the Accelerated Reader program. The areas considered were teachers’ experience, teachers’ peer experience, teachers’ peer support, gender, and age. The population for this study consisted of teachers who used Accelerated Reader from four school districts in Louisiana. The total number of teachers who were given the survey was 417, and the number of teachers who completed the survey was 301, resulting in a response rate of 72.2%. In this study, 6 research questions were addressed. The first question asked whether a statistically significant relationship exists between teachers’ experience in using electronic education tools and their disposition to trust Accelerated Reader technology to facilitate reading instruction. The second question asked if a statistically significant relationship exists between teachers’ peer experience and their disposition to trust Accelerated Reader software technology to improve reading instruction. The third question asked if a statistically significant relationship exists between teachers’ peer support and their disposition to trust that Accelerated Reader software technology improves reading instruction. The fourth question asked if a relationship exists between teachers’ gender and their disposition to trust that the Accelerated Reader technology will improve reading instruction. The fifth research question asked if a statistically significant relationship exists between teachers’ age and their disposition to trust that the Accelerated Reader technology will improve reading instruction. Finally, the sixth research question asked if teachers trust that Accelerated Reader technology is perceived as effective in helping to improve reading instruction. The results found that teachers’ experience, teachers’ peer experience, teachers’ peer support, and gender were all antecedents that had meaningful statistical relationships with disposition to trust. Gender was found to affect only 1% of the overall variance of disposition to trust when all five variables were examined together; however, findings indicated that females had less disposition to trust than males. Multiple age brackets were found to be insignificant.

This study was needed to determine if the Accelerated Reader (AR) program made a positive impact in schools, which were attempting to increase student achievement in reading. The purpose of this study was to determine if students who received reading instruction supplemented with the AR Program achieved higher reading scores as measured by the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT) than students who were instructed using only traditional basal reader textbooks. 6 school districts were selected to participate in this study. There were 1,111 3rd — 5th grade students in the 6 districts between the years 2004 and 2007. Of those 1,111 students, 248 students met the criteria to be included in this study. Therefore, 248 students’ reading scores were analyzed for this study. The findings of the study revealed that AR had a positive impact on students’ MCT reading scores. There were no significant differences, however, between the reading scores in the three years 2004, 2005, and 2006 of AR students (male or female) and the reading scores of the Non-AR (NAR) students (male or female). There were no significant differences between the reading scores in the three years 2005, 2006, and 2007 of the AR students and the reading scores of the NAR students (male or female). This study was needed to determine if the AR program was beneficial to schools, which were attempting to increase student achievement in reading. The findings of this study may be used to help administrators and schools evaluate the usefulness and money spent on AR. While no significant differences were shown, the results did show that the AR students’ scores were higher than the NAR students on the MCT reading.

Knowledge of the implementation practices of successful elementary schools will be beneficial to other elementary principals who seek to improve student success in reading. This study examined perceptions of principals from elementary schools in Texas whose schools received the Gold Performance Acknowledgement (GPA) from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for Continuous Improvement in Reading (CIR) on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) in 2002. The study had two purposes: (1) to identify the principal??s perception of the levels of implementation and impact of selected reading strategies used by selected elementary schools in Texas to improve student success in reading and (2) to determine the principal??s perception of the extent to which Accelerated Reader (AR) and AR-like recommend practices were used in selected elementary schools in Texas. The research design for this study was descriptive. Parameters, which are descriptive measures of a population, were used since all 721 members of the population were mailed questionnaires. Research was conducted during the winter of2004. Two hundred fifty-two principals responded. A questionnaire using a Likerttype scale for the principals?? responses was used to collect the data. Principals?? perceptions were measured to determine the degree of implementation and impact of AR and other selected reading strategies. Data were analyzed for all 252 respondents for selected reading strategies and by the categories of AR and non-AR schools for AR recommended reading strategies and AR-like recommended reading strategies, respectively. This study identified the characteristics of a successful reading program in Texas elementary schools. To maximize their budgets while improving student success in reading, principals should provide their teachers with professional development, implement student/teacher conferences to direct reading practice, allow students to self-select books on their independent reading level for independent reading practice, consider use of literature circles, classroom libraries and reading textbooks, review the use of rewards and posting of goals to determine if these practices increase students?? success in reading, assess computer reading programs to determine if there are less costly options available, and in schools using the AR program, review implementation practices for greater impact.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of Accelerated Reader on the reading motivation and achievement of fourth grade students. The participants were 68 fourth grade students who attended an elementary school in a suburban location north of a large Midwestern city. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the investigation to understand and analyze the effects of the program.Quantitative methods utilized a pre/post-test design using the Motivation to Read Profile (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzzoni, 1996) to assess motivation and the STAR Reading Diagnostic Test (Renaissance Learning, 2002) to measure achievement through instructional reading levels. Participants were divided into three groups based upon the total number of Accelerated Reader points they had accumulated during a continuous 14 week period. Analyses compared the differences in gains in motivation and reading achievement among the groups. The only significant effect noted was that the higher the number of Accelerated Reader points accumulated, the smaller the decrease in motivational scores. A comparison of the number of books read among the groups revealed the group obtaining the highest number of points read significantly more books than the group with lowest.Qualitative measures consisted of the administration of the Conversational Interview portion of the Motivation to Read Profile (Gambrell, et al., 1996) to nine students, three randomly selected from each of the previously established groups. Interviews were conducted to gain information concerning students' motivation for reading through the construction of theories based upon consistencies and differences among and between groups' responses. The categories within which all themes were grouped included motivations for book selections, reasons for reading, and the amount of knowledge retained through reading. Very little mention of Accelerated Reader was made in any portion of the interview sessions. / Department of Elementary Education

This study was conducted to determine if a significant difference existed based on the reading achievement of 3rd grade students as measured by the Mississippi Curriculum Test Reading Scaled Score of those students who utilized the Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader Software Management Program and those who did not participate in the program. The impact of gender and ethnicity on reading achievement and the relationship between the STAR Test for Assessment of Reading and the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT) as measures of reading achievement were also studied. The findings indicate students who participated in the Accelerated Reading Program achieved significantly higher reading scores than students who did not participate in the program. Within the Accelerated Reading Group, Caucasians earned significantly higher scores than the African-American/Other group. Female participants scored significantly higher scores than males. There was a strong association between the scores students on the STAR Test for Reading Assessment and the Mississippi Curriculum Test. The findings of this study indicated that gender, ethnicity, and the Accelerated Reading Program impacted MCT scores. There existed a strong association between scores on the Mississippi Curriculum Test and the scores on the STAR Test for Reading Assessment. Conclusions that emerged from the study suggest that Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader software when used in conjunction with the regular reading series seemed to have a positive impact on reading achievement. Recommendations for future research include investigating a possible gender bias in literature that could impact reading achievement and the impact of ethnicity on reading achievement.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association exists between reading methodologies and reading achievement as measured by the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) for sixth-grade students. The four reading methodology groups were: developmental reading, literature-based reading, Accelerated Reader program, and Accelerated Reader program with vocabulary study. The sample included 236 students in one middle school located in Northeast Tennessee during the 2004-2005 school year. Comparisons were made using TCAP criterion-referenced test reading/language arts scores, TCAP proficiency levels for content, meaning, and vocabulary categories for 2005, and pretest and posttest scores on the student assessment of reading. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings indicated significant differences in the reading methodology groups. The developmental group performed much lower than the other three groups. The literature-based group performed much higher than the other groups. Even when the analysis of the gain scores showed no statistical difference among groups, the literature-based group had the largest gain. The students in this study exceeded the state's annual goal of scoring 80% proficient or higher. The literature-based group and both Accelerated Reader groups exceeded the goal by achieving 90% on proficiency levels, whereas the developmental group failed to meet the state's goal in content and meaning but met the goal for vocabulary. Overall, the Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Reader with vocabulary groups were similar across all dependent variables.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a difference existed between TCAP scores of students who used the Accelerated Reader (AR) program and students who used Sustained Silent Reading strategy (SSR) as measured by the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). The variables of grade level (6th, 7th, and 8th), gender, and socioeconomic status (free- or reduced- price meals program) were considered. The population consisted of 108 6th graders who attended a Cocke County school or a McMinn County school in Tennessee. Data were obtained from the TCAP for 3 consecutive years beginning in 2004-2005 for students who completed the tests all 3 years. A t test for independent samples and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine if there was a difference on associations and interactions between variables. The researcher's investigation of the reading achievement of students who used Accelerated Reader and those who used Sustained Silent Reading should assist educators in planning for supplemental reading instruction. The information gathered from this research might be beneficial to other school systems when determining which method of reading instruction to use to increase students' reading achievement. The findings indicated the students who used the Accelerated Reader program had an increase in reading-language arts scale scores for 3 consecutive years. The findings of this study also revealed that gender had no significance on student achievement for 6th graders. The findings did indicate a significant interaction between gender and type of program used during 7th and 8th grades. Females who used the Accelerated Reader program outscored males who used the program. The findings of this study also determined that socioeconomic status had no association with TCAP scores during the 6th, 7th, or 8th grades.