2023 Product Release Notes

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Grade Placement (GP) Now Aligns with Your School Year
  • This will be very beneficial as grade placement is now more closely aligned to your unique academic school year.
  • GP is calculated as a percent based on each customer’s academic school year, instead of students’ grade placement being based on a static calendar year starting August 1.

Star Assessments

• State Benchmark Updates
  • Each year Renaissance rolls out updated state benchmarking information for a handful of states. This year, Renaissance is introducing new cut scores for six states (CO, IL, KY, NM, NC, and SC) and an updated test name for AZ.
  • In addition to our annual updates, the way that the state benchmarking system adjusts expectations backwards from the state test mid-date to the beginning of the school year has changed for 2023-2024 for all customers. State benchmark reports and extracts have not changed; only the underlying system that time-adjusts state test cut scores backwards has changed.
    • Data used to generate state time-adjusted benchmarks has been updated to reflect more recent school years than what has been used in the past.
    • The new state benchmarking system includes increased precision around the way we account for student growth throughout the year. State benchmarks are now time-adjusted to a particular date. The previous approach relied on grade placement and was not as precise to the day.
    • It is possible that students with a particular Scaled Score are now estimated to be in a different proficiency category than they have been in the past.
    • Differences between the new and prior system, if they are apparent at all, should be more noticeable at the start of the school year because of the way we are accounting for growth over time. Towards the end of the school year there will be no differences.

Freckle

• Help Menu
  • Using the new Help menu in the top right of the navigation bar, educators can quickly gain access to the support they need.
• Enhancements were released to the Prerequisite Targeted Practice flow:
  • Ability to select/deselect which students will receive Prerequisite Targeted Practice assignments.
  • Ability to reassign Prerequisite Targeted Practice assignments for additional practice.
• Depth of Knowledge Session Reports
  • Teachers can now see how students have responded during a Targeted or Adaptive Depth of Knowledge (DOK) math session.
• ELA System Updates
  • In July and August, the Freckle ELA Curriculum team shipped several updates related to ELA Systems:
    • Eight improved ELA Systems for users in: CO, FL, IL, KS, MA, NC, PA, & TX
    • Five new ELA Systems for users in: MN, MO, OH, OK, & WI
• Math Curriculum Updates
  • Released Freckle Guided Practice coverage for all 3rd – 5th grade focus skills, regardless of which state standard set is being used.

myON

• v4.13.3 released on 8/10/23
  • Updated Spanish translation for the Play button when in record-mode (translation from jugar to reproducir)
  • Adds Forethought Solve Widget into Renaissance Help button in myON (US) so personnel can find articles on what they need to be able to connect with Customer Support
  • Changes the Library > Browse “Social Emotional Learning” category name to “Life Skills”
  • Fixes iOS/Safari issue in portrait mode on iPads where literacy tools were inaccessible due to being placed behind the page

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Accommodations and Secure Browser
  • Districts and schools that had opted in to have the Secure Browser made available on their site, also need to have student Accommodations be honored. Shortly after releasing the Accommodations preference, it was discovered that student Accommodations were not being honored if the RGP site also had the Secure Browser preference.
  • This issuse has been resolved. Accommodations will be honored when Secure Browser is added/enabled on Renaissance sites.
• System Status Page Relocation
  • As of 7/10/23 the System Status link is now on the bottom of the Home Page and accessible for all personnel users (used to be only available to District Admins)
• Updated RGP Password Complexity Requirements - live as of 7/10/23
  • Student Password Requirements:
    • 2 character minimum; can include uppercase, lowercase, number, special character
    • Allowed list of special characters
    • Note: Pass phrases are allowed and can have spaces, but not at the beginning or end
  • All Personnel Password Requirements:
    • 14 character minimum; must include one uppercase, one lowercase, one number, and one special character
    • Allowed list of special characters
    • Note: Pass phrases are allowed and can have spaces, but not at the beginning or the end
  • These updated requirements will be grandfathered in, meaning that users will not have to immediately update their password when the change goes live. Passwords will need to meet the new requirements the next time:
    • User tries to reset their password
    • User updates their password via the Edit Profile page
    • Passwords are updated via Manage Apps & Users
    • New users are created

Accelerated Reader

• Accelerated Reader Quiz Player Accessibility - All other quiz types are now fully accessible as of 7/10/23

Freckle

• Printable Certificates - Teachers can customize and print downloadable certificates to celebrate student successes.

Star Assessments

• Star CBM Updates
  • If you keep a "library" of Star CBM forms from year to year, please print and replace the Teacher version of the Expressive Nonsense Word forms.
    • The instructions are now updated to remind the test administrator to click on the last item that the student attempted.
    • The scoring rules have been made more explicit in response to customer questions/feedback.
• Star Phonics Integration into RGP
  • Teachers, students, and admins will need to access the single sign-on through RGP to log in to Star Phonics instead of using the direct URL
• Star CBM Reading: Benchmarks added for Sight and High-Frequency Words & Encoding
  • These two measures were field tested in the 2022-2023 school year
  • Reporting and benchmarks available for both measures for grades K-3

Lalilo

• Adaptive Learning Changes
  • Students will start assignments right away instead of finishing the current lesson
  • Students won't switch lessons every 5 activities anymore instead they will practice each LO of a lesson, and then switch to a new lesson.
  • Students will still switch lessons even if the previous lesson is not "validated" -- this doesn't change. Practicing all LOs is the only condition to switch lesson.
  • Students won't stay on a lesson for 5 activities anymore. Students who had only 1 non-validated LO would work on this LO for 5 activities in a row, which would lead to repetition
• Standards Displayed in Classes for NJ, GA, MA, PA, and MO
  • Teachers with premium accounts in New Jersey, Georgia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Missouri can now see reporting for their students based on their respective state standards.
  • Reporting is retroactive, so teachers can see any prior activity reported in the standards section of an individual student's page.
• 11 New Books
  • Listening Comprehension
    • The Mud Pit (K)
    • Plenty of Pumpkins (K)
    • What is Climate Change? (K)
    • A Cool Treat (K)
    • Michelle Obama (2nd)
  • Independent Reading
    • Miss Daisy and the Rain (1st)
    • From Egg to Butterfly (1st)
    • The Best Pet (1st)
    • Let's Save the Sea Turtles! (1st)
    • The Birthday Gift (2nd)
    • Being a Good Friend (2nd)

Renaissance Growth Platform

• User Profile page now displays customer account number
  • The “User Profile” page in the Renaissance Growth Platform now displays customer account numbers for enhanced visibility.

Renaissance Analytics

• Lalilo Metrics now available in Renaissance Analytics
  • Active students (district/school views) / Exercised Completed (student views)
  • Students practicing the recommended time (district/school views) / Minutes Practiced (student views)
  • Performance: percent of students who are on track (district/school views) / Performance Status (student views)

Freckle

• Assignments First Mode is now teacher-specific and will only require a student to complete the assignments from the teacher/class the student is currently signed into.
• New ELA Systems Available
  • We released twelve new ELA systems for users in the following state-specific markets: CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, MI, NH, ND, NV, UT, WA, WY.
  • New users in those states will default to their state-specific system, while existing users will persist on their previously selected system until we perform our annual migration of users (mid-July) to the more appropriate system.
• Assignments Reporting Enhancements (currently for Premium Math teachers only)
  • Assignments > By Assignments Tab > Assignment Session Report (select View Report in the drop-down menu for the assignment)
    • Students grouped by performance, and each group will include a recommended action:
      • May Need Help → Assign a Prerequisite Skill
      • Nearing Proficiency → Reassign Standard or Generate a worksheet for this standard
      • Ready for a Challenge → Assign a DOK Challenge
  • Assignments > By Student Tab
  • Teachers see recommended actions when they click the arrow next to a Targeted Math practice score.
    • We may recommend a DOK challenge, reassign standard, or assign prerequisite skill.
    • For other practice modes, users can view the practice report
• Guided Practice Supports
  • Freckle’s new Guided Practice supports introduce step-by-step, interactive worked examples that walk students through a series of steps they can take to solve the problems they get stuck on during Adaptive and Focus Skills Math practice. Each step of the worked example requires the student to engage by answering a quick question in order to get the student to think about and comprehend each step of the strategy.

myON

• v4.13.2 went live on 6/13/23
  • Fixed issue where District or Building Admin could see a string of code on an Account page
  • Updated “Mixteco” to “Mixteco (Tuún Saavi / Tuún ntávi)” in the product
• New Titles Added
  • An additional 97 books were released to the myON core collection at the beginning of June. Brings the myON core collection count to 8,085 and the myON Spanish translated title count to 623.

Lalilo

• 30 decodable texts for kindergarten and 1st grade have been revised
• Standards Displayed for Classes in NC and NY
  • Teachers with premium accounts in North Carolina (NC) and New York (NY) can now see reporting for their state standards. Reporting is retroactive, so teachers can see any prior activity reported in the standards section of an individual student's page.
  • Teachers in NC and NY previously were without state-specific standards reporting. Now they can track student progress on the standards used in their state.
• School Admin Rights Changed
  • School admins are now able to add, edit, delete, and transfer students for manually rostered classes.

Star Assessments

• Star Reports – Grade Group Selector Update
  • Improved functionality has been added to the grade group selector when selecting which students to include on reports. Only grades that have students will be shown.

Renaissance Analytics

• Star CBM Metrics Now Available
  • Students Assessed (district & school views) / Assessments Completed (student views) for Star CBM Reading, Star CBM Math, and Star CBM Lectura
  • Students At/Above Benchmark (district & school views for CBM Reading and CBM Math) / Benchmark Category (student views for CBM Reading and CBM Math)
  • Student in Satisfactory/Optimal Benchmark (district & school views for Star CBM Lectura) / Benchmark Category (student views for Star CBM Lectura)
• Additional Star Assessment Metrics Added
  • Renaissance Analytics now includes the following additional metrics for Star Reading, Star Math, and Star Early Literacy (English and Spanish): Students Assessed (district & school views) / Assessments Completed (student views)

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Export & Import Page updates
  • Export Student Data page:
    • Updated to use drop-down menus when making selections
    • Data table now includes both date and time stamp
  • Import Roster Data page:
    • One option for Import File Type: Single-School File
    • OneRoster and Multi-School Import File Types are no longer available

myON

• New Titles Added to myON
  • An additional 97 books were released to the myON core collection at the beginning of this month.
  • Brings the myON core collection count to 7,988 and the myON Spanish translated title count to 574 (for a total of 951 Spanish titles)

Freckle

• 14 New Skills for Adaptive Grammar Practice
  • Our new offerings in Adaptive Grammar practice provide students the chance to use grade-appropriate general academic vocabulary, as well as grade-appropriate content-area vocabulary for grades 1-8.
  • The skills and standards covered are founded upon Anchor Standard 6 of the Common Core’s Language strand and are aligned to the other states covered through Freckle ELA.
  • Our latest Grammar offerings present students with various question types, including multiple-choice, fix-the-sentence, and select-the-word, to support students in determining which general academic vocabulary and content-area vocabulary best fits within a sentence.
• Prerequisite Targeted Practice
  • A new Prerequisite Targeted Practice option is now available providing educators the ability to better support students who may benefit from working on prerequisite skills, in order to catch up to grade-level content, through a differentiated assignment.
  • If a student has assessed lower than the selected skill or has struggled with recent practice related to this skill, Freckle may provide a recommendation for teachers to differentiate the assignment for students by assigning a mix of prerequisite skills along with the selected skill. Students who receive the prerequisite skills will not receive the assignment on the selected skill.

Lalilo

• California Content Standards Displayed for Classes in California
  • Teachers with a premium account in California can now see reporting for their students based on the California Content Standards.
  • Reporting is retroactive, so teachers can see any prior activity reported in the standards section of an individual student's page.
• Mississippi Standards Displayed for Classes in MS
  • Teachers with a premium account in Mississippi can now see reporting for their students based on the Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards. Reporting is retroactive, so teachers can see any prior activity reported in the standards section of an individual student's page.
• Alabama Standards Displayed for Classes in AL
  • Teachers with premium accounts in Alabama can now see reporting for their students based on the 2021 Alabama Course of Study standards. Reporting is retroactive, so teachers can see any prior activity reported in the standards section of an individual student's page.
• Teachers can disable the Read Aloud activity for specific students
  • Thanks to feedback from special education teachers, we know that read-aloud exercises are not working for some students, especially students with speech impediments or other special needs. Teachers can now set the Read-aloud activity toggle to off for select students, so those students will not be given read-aloud activities.
• Teacher app available on mobile devices: We now have our first usable version of the teach-app for mobile devices.
• Onboarding carousel
  • A new slide has been added to the onboarding carousel (which is visible when you create a new class). This slide allows teachers to set the weekly goal they desire for their class.

myON

• myON v4.13.0 released on 4/19/23
  • Adds support for ‘hyperlocalized’ grade taxonomy
  • Minor updates to Spanish, China, and Portuguese translations
  • Updates the Student Profile Report footer to reflect "Renaissance Learning, Inc" instead of "myON, LLC"
  • Resolves issue with large rosters being truncated down to 1,000 when manual changes were made to them
  • Updates the support site URL per new requirements
  • Updates Admin Settings "Account Options" page with new formatting, text, and new library management tools
  • Adds the ability for DA (district administrator) users to restrict BA (building administrator) users from being able to deselect any book collection from their Account > Collections settings page.
  • Adds the ability for a DA to turn off the rotating banner on the Library > Recommended page with an option to allow BAs to set this independently for their building.
• New Titles Added to myON!
  • An additional 80 books were released to the myON core collection at the beginning of this month.
  • Brings the myON core collection count to 7,891 and the myON Spanish translated title count to 563 (for a total of 947 Spanish titles)

Lalilo

• Review Lessons
  • Students will automatically receive review lessons for lessons they have mastered in the past.
  • Depending on the type of skill, some lessons will be reviewable 5 days after being mastered, and some 7 days after.
  • Review lessons will not exceed 20% of the time spent by students on Lalilo.
  • Failing a review activity will trigger a remediation activity, if available, to help the student relearn the concept.
  • Review activities will count as any regular practice activity in the success rate percentages for both Standards & Day Result reports.
  • Students will not be alerted when doing review lessons.
• Student Certificates
  • Teachers can now print certifications for students finishing Lalilo.
  • Teachers are informed via email that a certificate is available for one or more students that can then be printed.
• Staff users now have more access to all these related class settings:
  • Rename Lalilo-rostered classes
  • Update weekly goals in class settings page and in reports
  • Archive class and un-archive classes
  • Delete classes

Renaissance Analytics

• myON Metrics in Renaissance Analytics
  • Renaissance Analytics will include the following metrics for myON customers that roster and access their myON application through the Renaissance Growth Platform:
    • Active Students (district & school views) / Books Read (student views)
    • Average Minutes Read (district & school views) / Minutes Spent Reading (student views)
    • Words Read (all views)
• Additional Freckle Metrics in Renaissance Analytics
  • Freckle customers that roster and access their Freckle application through the Renaissance Growth Platform will see the following additional metrics in Renaissance Analytics
    • Active Students (district & school views) / Sessions Completed (student views)
    • Accuracy (district, school, and student views)

Accelerated Reader

• Accelerated Reader Quiz Player Accessibility
  • AR Quiz Player now fully accessible for Reading Practice Quizzes. Additional quiz types will be added incrementally in the future.
  • If quiz has audio available, a Pause and Play option will appear on each question
  • Note: Typing A, B, C, or D on the keyboard will no longer work when selecting quiz answers. Keyboard arrows, tab, and Enter should be used.

Freckle

• Email Opt-Out Preferences: Freckle educators may now unsubscribe to the weekly Freckle engagement emails by subject.

myON

• v4.12.2 released on 3/9/23
  • Fixed issue where long project tasks and descriptions could go off the page
  • Fixed issue where rotating banner wasn’t continuing to play once pause was toggled on/off
  • Removed Lexile column from the book search table in non-Lexile buildings
  • Added number of tests taken column to the myON placement report
  • Fixed issue where the date shown for a Star test on the Assessments tab in myON wasn’t matching what was shown to users in their Star reports from Renaissance
  • Fixed issues with Student Profile Report where Last Books Read were not populating accurately
  • Fixed issue introduced in v4.12.0 where Star Score banner wasn’t being hidden from student dashboard when grade-level equivalent ATOS was being used
  • Lalilo books added to myON

Lalilo

• Co-Teaching (aka Team Teachers)
  • A co-teaching feature was released allowing primary teachers to share their class with others who may be working with the same group of students.
  • How it works with the different rostering options:
    • Lalilo Rostered - The Primary teacher sends an invitation from within Lalilo to the co-teacher(s). Once the co-teacher accepts, the class will appear in Lalilo.
    • RGP Rostered - Co-teachers are added by adding them as Team Teachers to the class.
    • Clever Rostered - Co-teachers assigned to classes in Clever will be brought in automatically when the Clever sync runs. If the co-teacher is not seeing the class, the primary teacher needs to select Re-sync students.

Star Assessments – NEW Accommodations Report

• Lets you see which students have accommodations set for them in the preference, and what those accommodations are.
• The report can also be used to list students who have a non-participation status set (indicating that they are not taking part in Star assessments).

myON

• New titles added in late February
  • An additional 55 books were released to the myON core collection
  • Brings the core collection count to 7,830 and the myON Spanish translated title count to 523 (for a total of 907 Spanish titles)

Freckle

• Word Study Matrix Report
  • Removed the grade levels that appeared at the top of the report table
  • The "Level" column was renamed to "Current Level"
  • When you select a level number, the tooltip will appear to include:
    • Level #, Standard Code
    • Skill description (e.g., "Sort for M, R")
    • Links to assign targeted Word Study practice for that skill, with class and skill pre-selected

Lalilo

• Removal of Reading Levels in Teacher Dashboard and Scope & Sequence
  • Books are now organized by grade level and text types
• New 2nd Grade Lessons
  • Abbreviations
  • Alphabetizing
  • Compound Words
  • Syllable Division
  • Irregular Vowel Team - "ou"
  • Irregular Vowel Team - "oo"
  • Irregular Vowel Team - "ie"
  • Irregular Vowel Team - "ea"
  • Irregular Vowel Team - "ow"
• Added Content to Short Triplets
  • 800 new content-lines and 120 new recordings were added
• Weekly Goals
  • Teachers can now set weekly usage goals for their classes and get updates about it in their weekly email. The setting is accessible from the class settings page, and from the student’s activity widget.
• New Phonology Lessons
  • Sounds and Words (K)
  • Counting Words (K)
  • Distinguishing Similar Words (K)
  • Compound Words (K)
  • Beginning Sounds (K)
  • Onsets & Rhymes (K → revisions)
  • Count & Blend Syllables (K → revisions)
  • Blending & Segmenting Phonemes (1 → revisions)
• Automated Class Replacement in Clever
  • Allows teachers to replace a class with a class that exists in Clever instead of getting stuck with an error message. The previous class is then automatically archived, and teachers can continue with their new class.
• New Menu Navigation – Teacher Dashboard
  • There is now a new way to navigate between Class Snapshot, Lessons Progress, and Placement Test Result. They are grouped on the same page, which allows you to navigate between them with the help of tabs at the top of the page.
• Interactive Text Questions in Comprehensive Books
  • Students can now interact with the text to answer questions in books.

Star Assessments

• Star Phonics
  • Filtering “Not Taught” Categories added allows district admins to decide if they only want to see the categories/words that are “Taught” or “Being Taught” and filter out the categories/words that are “Not Taught.” The Category Filter applies to the screener assessment and will affect some reports
    • Accessed from the Admin Dashboard
    • Filter can be set for: All schools or specific school; All grades or specific grade
    • Screener window:
      • BOY (Beginning of Year)
      • MOY (Middle of Year)
      • EOY (End of Year)

Freckle

• Word Study Practice Aligned to Foundational Reading Standards
  • Enables teachers to assign Targeted Word Study by standard and skill.
  • Students will still see the same Word Study practice content, but now teachers will see the associated standard and skill when creating assignments or reviewing student reports.
  • Word Study practice is now accessible and reported on by each supported ELA state system.
  • Word Study level progression remains the same and does not follow the standard sequence for each state system like we do in ELA Skills Practice and math.
  • See the updated Word Study levels document.
  • How do teachers access it?
    • Targeted Word Study Assignment: When a teacher navigates to Assignments → ELA → Word Study → Targeted Word Study, they will now see the option to assign by Reading Foundations standard and skill.
    • ELA Standards page: When a teacher navigates to ELA → Standards, they will now see the Foundational Skills domain accompanied by the corresponding RF standards.
    • Word Study Standards (Reading Foundations) Reports:
      • When a teacher navigates to Reports → ELA → Performance by Standard, they will see a new Foundational Skills section that displays standards practiced from the new domain.
      • When a teacher navigates to Reports → ELA → ELA Report Cards → View Report Card → Standards Tab, they will see a new Foundational Skills section that displays how individual students are performing in this domain.
• New Literature Practice
  • Released 31 new skills for English Language Arts skills practice that provide students the opportunity to analyze text structures and literary point of view in fiction texts for grades 2-8.
  • The skills and standards covered are founded upon Anchor Standard 5 and 6 of the Common Core's Literature strand and are aligned to the other states currently available in Freckle ELA.
    • Practice in Anchor Standard 5 includes skills focusing on structural elements and their impact on the development of fiction texts.
    • Practice in Anchor Standard 6 includes skills focusing on narrative point of view, perspective, and characterization in fiction texts.
  • How do teachers access it?
    • Teachers can assign Adaptive and Targeted ELA Skills practice for all discrete skills and standards offerings in the Literature domain.
    • Teachers can view student progress on the Activity Feed, Assignments Feed, and ELA Performance by Standards report.

myON

• myON v4.12.1 released on 1/26/23
  • Building titles will be read-only for customers. Future changes will need to be made through Customer Support
  • Added pagination and new Active/Inactive toggles in the Projects page. This will alleviate slow loading for users with a lot of projects and/or a high number of users assigned to a project.
  • Added an ATOS column to the Project book task search page
• New Titles Added
  • 38 books released, bringing the myON core collection count to 7,731 titles
  • myON Spanish translated title count is now 448 (832 Spanish titles)
  • These titles were added to the core collection which is available to all US customers
• myON v4.12.0 released on 1/5/23
  • Added ability to see FastBridge scores: import scores in a CSV file that will display as Lexile in myON
  • Minor translation updates
  • Replaced "Reading Level" with "ATOS" for non-student users on the non-student book tile
  • Removed the “Reading Level” filter from the Library Browse pages and replaced it with an ATOS Level range filter and Min/Max input fields
  • Updated the “Books in your ZPD Reading Range” band on the Recommended page to return books with ATOS that fall on or within the selected range, sorted by grade level appropriateness