Where "stars" come from
A star on a LENA report shows a family met a goal for words, turns, or shared reading minutes.
Individual families' stars contribute to the Group Stars Report.
Stars on LENA reports
A family can earn up to 2 stars per LENA Day - one for Words and one for Turns.
Starting after Session 3, a family can also earn up to 1 star between each session for Reading Minutes.
Click each item below to see star criteria.
A family can earn one star per LENA Day for words by meeting either of these criteria:
- words are at or above the 75th percentile, OR
- word count is below the 75th percentile but is at least 10% higher than the average of their last 3 LENA Days*
If the family has fewer than 3 previous LENA Days, then LENA uses the average of all previous days
A family can earn one star per LENA Day for turns by meeting either of these criteria:
- turns are at or above the 75th percentile, OR
- turns count is below the 75th percentile but is at least 10% higher than the average of the last 3 LENA Days*
If the family has fewer than 3 previous LENA Days, then LENA uses the average of all previous days
A family can earn one star per session by reporting average daily reading minutes at or above the recommended range for the age of their child.
The reading minutes star on the report typically comes from the family responding to the Reading Reminder text after the previous session.
If a family sends more than one reading minutes text, LENA uses only the largest value to determine whether a star is earned.
Families who cannot send reading minutes by text can report their time to the coordinator, who can can manually input the minutes on the family's behalf. The coordinator should take care when inputting the date, and make only one entry between each of the group's session dates to avoid duplicating stars.
Reading minutes reported on a Snapshot do not contribute to stars.
How can I tell when and how stars were earned by a Participant?
The best place to see when and how stars were earned is on the individual reports.
Stars for words and turns appear on the daily bars for the LENA Days when they were earned.
The shared reading area of the report shows the cumulative reading stars total. To see specific reading minutes dates, refer to the Reading Minutes section of LENA Online for that child.
About star counts in the Session Prep Report
The Prep Report in LENA Online Session Prep shows how many star stickers a caregiver has earned but hasn't yet received so that the coordinator knows how many stickers to clip to the report.
Why might the Prep Report say a family earned more than three stars?
When everything is running like clockwork, the "session stars" number will match the number of stars earned for words and turns on the device processed at the last session, plus reading minutes reported between the previous session and Prep Report generation, BUT...most families aren't clocks. Families miss sessions, forget to bring their device, turn in two devices in one week, ask coordinators to enter reading minutes for past weeks, and so forth. The Prep Report takes these things into account so you can have the right number of stickers on hand to fill in each family's Talking Tips chart.
About star counts in the Group Stars Report
Star counts in the Group Stars Report may not match exactly what is on in the individual reports for a given session, or the Prep Report (as described above). The reading minutes stars in the Group Stars Report lag one session behind the individual report.