This chapter discusses to use of Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs) for early childhood response to intervention (RTI).Citation: McConnell, S. R., & Greenwood, C. R. (2013). General outcome measures in early childhood and the Individual Growth and Development Indicators. In V. Buysse & E. Peisner-Feinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Response to Intervention in early childhood (pp. 143-154). Baltimore MN: Paul H. Brookes.

Accelerated Reader is the practice component essential to any reading curriculum. This practice is personalized to each student's individual level to ensure a high rate of success and immediately followed by feedback to help educators target instruction. Personalized practice includes guiding students to books at appropriate levels, closely monitoring their progress, and intervening with appropriate instruction when necessary. Accelerated Reader software and best classroom practices have been shown by scientifically based research to be effective in helping educators dramatically accelerate reading growth in K-12 classrooms. Numerous studies by independent researchers demonstrate that students' reading abilities improve with the use of Accelerated Reader and best practices, and that the performance gap between high-achieving and low-achieving students is substantially reduced. The large evidence base supporting Accelerated Reader consists of a number of experimental and quasi-experimental research studies--generally considered by the research community to provide the strongest evidence of effectiveness and to be consistent with the definition of scientifically based research--and includes articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The research evidence on Accelerated Reader has been favorably reviewed by the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE), the Florida Center for Reading Research, the National Center on Student Progress Monitoring, the National Dropout Prevention Center, the Promising Practice Network, and the What Works Clearinghouse, among others. Key studies that support Accelerated Reader are summarized on these pages and is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R12493>.

From the abstract: "The purpose of this study was to compare both rates of reading achievement growth and predictive power of two widely-used assessments representing two different approaches to measurement - a computer adaptive assessment called Star Reading and a curriculum based measurement called AIMSweb. A total of 117 students from a school district in Tennessee were included in the sample. Data collection spanned two school years, and included students who were progress monitored (taking a minimum of 4 tests per year) in grades 1 through 4 in one year, and in grades 2 through 5 the subsequent year. Across the two years, interventions for both groups of students were consistent. The results of this study indicate that both measures were able to detect incremental change, and provide further support that both computer adaptive measures such as Star Reading and CBMs such as AIMSweb R-CBM are acceptable for progress monitoring. Of the two measures, only Star Reading achieved a significant correlation with the state reading assessment."Citation: Shapiro, E. S., & Gibbs, D. P. (2014). Comparison of progress monitoring with computer adaptive tests and curriculum based measures. Bethlehem, PA: Center for Promoting Research to Practice, Lehigh University.The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R57324>.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Iowa Star Reading and Star Math Enterprise schools on the Renaissance Place hosted platform, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Iowa's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking Iowa's state tests (IA) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores. Sample Pathway to Proficiency and related reports are also included. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R52870>.

This document reports research design and analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) for Gender and Race/Ethnicity (American Indian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian) student characteristics for a total of 846 assessment items from the Renaissance Star Early Literacy. (Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of this study from the Renaissance Research Department.)

Assessment In Special and Inclusive Education is an educational psychology textbook that contains reviews of numerous assessment instruments. The review of Star Early Literacy in the online supplement to this textbook confirms the reliability and validity of the assessment. AUTHORS: John Salvia, EdD, Jim Ysseldyke, PhD, NCSP, and Sara Bolt, PhD.

Assessment In Special and Inclusive Education is an educational psychology textbook that contains reviews of numerous assessment instruments. The review of Star Reading in this textbook confirms the reliability and validity of the assessment. AUTHORS: John Salvia, EdD, Jim Ysseldyke, PhD, NCSP, and Sara Bolt, PhD.

Assessment In Special and Inclusive Education is an educational psychology textbook that contains reviews of numerous assessment instruments. The review of Star Math in this textbook confirms the reliability and validity of the assessment. AUTHORS: John Salvia, EdD, Jim Ysseldyke, PhD, NCSP, and Sara Bolt, PhD.

This study found that there was a strong correlation between Star Reading and third grade communications arts Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores (r=.695). CITATION: Moore, D. J. (2012). A case study of the analysis of factors that occur with reading proficiency in rural district in Southeast Missouri [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Missouri-Columbia.The full report is available online: <https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/33091/Research.pdf>.The Summary of this study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R57666>

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for Indiana Star Reading Enterprise schools, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from Indiana's Grade 3 reading achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination (IREAD-3) assessment and Star Reading scaled scores in Grade 3.The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R55914>.

DETAILS: Location: Accelerated Reader hosted customers; Design: Analysis using hosted customer database; Sample: 2,284,464 students in grades 1-12; Measure: Star Reading; Duration: 1 school year.RESULTS: This study of Accelerated Reader was conducted to update the original Guided Independent Reading publication (Paul, 2003) with a larger, more current sample and analyses targeted to recent trends in educational standards and recommendations. Results generally supported the Accelerated Reader Best Practices shaped by Paul's (2003) analyses. Quality (comprehension), quantity (engaged reading time), and difficulty (average percent correct) emerged as key factors to consider in creating successful student reading practice, with quality (comprehension) being most important. Trends indicated that students should strive for high levels of comprehension while challenging themselves to read increasingly more complex text, and that they need to spend about 25 minutes per day reading, which requires roughly 35 minutes of daily scheduled reading time.The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R55777>.

This is the second paper written for Renaissance by writing expert Steve Graham, Currey Ingram Professor of Special Education and Literacy in the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. In it, Graham discusses why it is so important that students not only learn how to write, but learn to write well, and he includes seven recommendations to help teachers work with students to develop this critical skill. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R42509>.

This peer-reviewed journal article reported the concurrent, predictive, and diagnostic accuracy of a computer-adaptive test (Star Math) and curriculum-based measurements (CBM; both computation and concepts/application measures) for universal screening in mathematics among students in first through fourth grade. Correlational analyses indicated moderate to strong relationships over time for each measure, with correlations between Star Math and CBM measures across the three assessment periods low to moderate, with the strongest relationships between the Star Math and CBM concepts/application measure. Relationships to the state assessment for math for third- and fourth-graders was found to be stronger for the Star Math measure than for either the CBM computation or concepts/application measures, with the Star Math measure the only significant predictor of the state assessment. Diagnostic accuracy indices found all measures to produce acceptable levels of specificity but limited levels of sensitivity. The study offered one of the first direct comparisons of Star Math and CBM measures in screening for mathematics. Implications of using Star Math and CBM measures in conducting screening in elementary mathematics were discussed.Citation: Shapiro, E. S., & Gebhardt, S. N. (2012). Comparing computer-adaptive and curriculum-based measurement methods of assessment. School Psychology Review, 41(3), 295-305. The full article is available online: <https://search.proquest.com/docview/1197769261>.