Anderson School District One in Williamston, South Carolina, has many high-performing students but is a low-funded district, meaning leaders must be selective about what they invest in and must thoroughly vet all tools to ensure they will be impactful. At the beginning of the 2022–2023 school year, Anderson One switched assessment programs to begin using Renaissance Star Assessments in order to access detailed information about students’ knowledge and mastery of standards-based skills. Shortly thereafter, the district added Freckle for Math and ELA, as well as Lalilo. K–5 students in the district have seen their growth scores soar using these Renaissance tools. The full study is available online: <https://renaissance.widen.net/s/wjbswknhc2/r69052>.

From the abstract: "Academic screener tools are commonly used within the context of multitiered systems of support, and it is expected that they have a high standard of technical adequacy, including reliability and validity evidence. In United States school systems, there are large numbers of students who speak languages other than English with varying levels of proficiency, and it is imperative that well-developed academic screening tools be accessible to active bilingual users/users of English (ABLE) in languages beyond English. This review evaluated the translation process, norming data, and National Center on Intensive Interventions (NCII) standards of academic screening tools that were available in the fall 2023 in early literacy, reading, and math in languages other than English. Information was coded using a rigorous, double-coding process. Findings revealed that academic screening tools for ABLE students are available only in English and Spanish. Very few academic screeners met development criteria for translated measures or met convincing evidence standards established by the NCII. Academic screening conducted in languages other than English is severely constrained by limited availability of high-quality measures. Additional effort should be devoted to developing new measures and appropriately translating and trans-adapting existing measures for ABLE students." Includes Star Alfabetización temprana, Star CBM Lectura, Star Lectura, and Star Matemáticas Citation: Huenergarde, M. C., Floyd, R. G., Harris, B., & Moreno, J. (2026). A systematic review of academic screening tools for active bilingual learners/users of English. Psychology in the Schools, 63(2), 314–331.

"Trends in student outcome measures: The role of individualized Lalilo practice" was independently reviewed and certified by Instructure to meet ESSA Tier 3 standards.

The Star Phonics Technical Manual, which provides technical information about how the program was developed.The full technical report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R67720>.

Executive Summary: "Early literacy screening plays a critical role in identifying students who may be at risk for reading difficulties. However, most widely used screening tools were designed and normed within monolingual English-speaking populations, limiting their utility when applied to multilingual learners. This white paper presents findings from a study examining the use of Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) within dual language contexts, with a specific focus on Spanish/English multilingual students. While Star CBM Lectura RAN benchmarks were developed using a large, multi-state norming sample, the findings presented in this paper draw exclusively from a focused study conducted in two dual language school districts in Oregon. Although both districts offer PK–12 dual language programs, the study sample consisted specifically of students in Kindergarten through Grade 3. Using Star CBM Lectura RAN measures, the study examined student performance across four RAN task types: colors, pictures, letters, and numbers, and analyzed language response patterns alongside teacher feedback collected during administration. Results demonstrate that RAN performance varies systematically by language of response. Students responding only in English showed faster naming speeds, followed by Spanish-only responses, while responses using both languages yielded the lowest scores. These differences reflect linguistic structure, and processing demands rather than reading ability or language proficiency, a finding consistent with cross-linguistic research on RAN and reading development (Georgiou et al., 2008; Landerl et al., 2013). Teacher feedback further highlighted the importance of interpreting RAN data through a bilingual lens, noting patterns of cross-language substitution, task-specific difficulty, and instructional relevance. The findings suggest that RAN can be a valuable early indicator of reading risk for multilingual learners when interpreted appropriately. However, equitable use requires responsive-to-language benchmarks, careful attention to task demands, and professional learning that supports educators in distinguishing bilingual processing patterns from indicators of reading difficulty." The study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R69049>.

EduEvidence, formerly the International Certification of Evidence of Impact in Education (ICEIE), has granted Renaissance's Lalilo the Silver badge (ESSA Tier 2) for Efficacy in enhancing learning outcomes.The full certification is available online: <https://eduevidence.org/products/>.

About What Kidsa are Reading 2025 Our very own Gene Kerns penned the Introduction to this year's report, which shares the reading habits of 5 million K--12 students, from 21,259 schools across all 50 states and DC, who read 173 million books during the 2023--2024 school year. This year's report explores the importance of kids spending 15 minutes on reading practice daily--a manageable amount for busy readers that our data show is the sweet spot to see real gains in terms of literacy achievement and vocabulary exposure. Two new report features highlight our findings, The Magic of 15 Purposeful Minutes spread on pp. 8--9, and the research questions and answers found in our four new Inspired to Read spreads kicking off each section of the report: What Kids are Reading is organized by grade range, with each section beginning with an Inspired to Read spread bursting with reading motivation. At the top of these pages, we've included two book lists: (1) Recognizing Resilience, featuring an array of stories whose characters display grit and tenacity, allowing readers to feel seen as well as broaden their understanding and empathy for others, and (2) Series Sets, where we've highlighted a book series for each grade level that was read by students who also favored a series from the Top Print list for that grade. Spanning the bottom of these pages, we explore The Magic of 15 Purposeful Minutes by examining the impact of kids spending just 15 minutes per day reading, using data from our Accelerated Reader database for the 2023--2024 school year. The following page begins with a Teacher Recommendation, from a reading survey conducted in January 2025 of educators spanning all grade levels, who answered a short series of questions regarding student book reading. Then, a map displaying Signature Books, that ranked higher in popularity in each state than they did nationwide, and four Fresh Finds, comprising books that kids first quizzed on during Fall 2024. Each individual grade level includes a Highest Rated book that received the most stars from kids in that grade who opted to rate books on a 4-point scale after reading and quizzing. Next up, two ranked booklists, Top Print (from Accelerated Reader) and Popular Digital (from myON), both display books by series, where appropriate, to allow as many unique authors and titles on the lists as possible. The myON books also do not repeat from grade to grade to include even more distinct titles. Finally, each grade level features a curated list of Authentic Spanish texts. The Full Report and additional information is available online: <https://www.renaissance.com/wkar>.

Early literacy practice with Lalilo was associated with higher levels of growth in general literacy achievement. Students who used Lalilo more intensively and for a longer period experienced the most growth in their literacy skills. Less intense and less frequent use of Lalilo was associated with relatively less achievement growth, but even lighter use was associated with more growth relative to students who did not use the program at all. These results remained consistent across struggling readers, English language Learners, and students from Title I schools.The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R63694>.

EduEvidence, formerly the International Certification of Evidence of Impact in Education (ICEIE), has granted Renaissance's Freckle for Math the Silver badge (ESSA Tier 2) for Efficacy in enhancing learning outcomes.The full certification is available online: <https://eduevidence.org/products/>.

The Phase II evaluation of Lalilo, independently conducted by WestEd, focused on the program’s impact on first grade students' literacy skills and reading attitudes. The quasi-experimental study involved 29 teachers and their students, divided into treatment and comparison groups. Results included detecting that Lalilo had a large significant positive impact on students’ oral reading fluency skills. This is an important outcome because fluency is both a critical component of literacy and a strong predictor of later reading success. Effects were particularly strong for students needing the most support. Teachers and students reported high satisfaction with the program, and in particular teachers highlighted its effectiveness in improving both student engagement and reading skills.Citation: Soo Ping Chow, A., Nilsen, K., Cruz, J., & Ciancio, D. (2024). Impact and implementation evaluation of Lalilo: Phase II report. WestEd.The executive summary is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R67886>.(Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the full study from the Renaissance Research Department.)

From the Introduction: "To provide optimal power and usefulness within our Star Assessments and many of our practice products, Renaissance takes a unique approach to content creation through the development of custom learning progressions. In general, learning progressions are descriptions of successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about key disciplinary concepts and practices across multiple grades, which outline intermediate steps toward expertise (Pellegrino, 2011). Learning progressions lay out in words and examples what it means to move toward more expert understanding (Wilson & Bertenthal 2005) in a subject area. While not unlike a traditional scope and sequence, learning progressions are far more thoughtfully developed and emphasize a holistic, cross-grades focus."The Full Report is available online: <https://renaissance.widen.net/s/jdm9kgx5cw/780549-lpfocusskills-whitepaper>.

From the introduction: "In the spring of 2024, Renaissance undertook a special study to gather further reliability and validity evidence for its four Star CBM rapid automatic naming (RAN) measures. These four assessments measure a student’s ability to rapid name colors (Rapid Color Naming (RCN), pictures (Rapid Picture Naming (RPN)), letters (Rapid Letter Naming (RLN)), and numbers (Rapid Number Naming (RNN)). The four RAN measures each have two test forms and are offered in grades K through 3."The study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R67673>.

This document contains updated classifaction accuracy for Star Early Literacy.The study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R67671>.