Sparx Reader is designed to help students build strong reading habits through regular, careful reading practice. This article explains how you can support your students to get the most benefit from the platform.
Supporting students who are struggling
Identify students who are struggling
Identify students who are struggling
You can monitor your classes' Hand-in pages to see how students are getting on with their homework each week.
The Hand-in page offers helpful insights which will help you identify whether a student is struggling:
The total amount of Sparx Reader Points (SRP) earned will let you know if a student has not completed their homework task that week.
The student's accuracy lets you see how many checks they are passing on the first attempt.
You can also see how well the students completed their previous homeworks, allowing you to identify if this is the first week they have not yet completed or if a pattern is forming.
The activity timeline will allow you to see a detailed view of their homework, including how they're performing on each question check. Consistent failing of checks will result in earning less SRP and homework taking longer. You can find out more in our Monitoring homework completion article.
How to support students that are struggling
How to support students that are struggling
Remind your students to read carefully
Remind your students to read carefully
If a student reads carefully, the checks should be easy for them to pass. If the student is rushing or skim-reading, they will likely fail their checks, get a low accuracy score and their homework will likely take longer than expected.
It is helpful to make sure students understand that reading carefully and taking their time is the most efficient way to earn points. You can make use of the Student demo feature (found under More on the left-hand side of your site) to show students what the reading looks like and demonstrate careful reading. It can also help to get a student who is struggling to come and read with ou so that you can witness their reading behaviour.
Encourage students to rate their books
Encourage students to rate their books
If a student is not enjoying their book or finding it too difficult, they can use the 'rate this book' page that appears after question checks. By inputting 'much too difficult', the student will be offered to swap the book for an easier title.
Enable accessibility settings
Enable accessibility settings
It may help to change some of the settings to make the reading more accessible to the students. You can find more information on what settings you can change and how in our article: Our approach to accessibility.
Swap the book for a student
Swap the book for a student
If you want the student to stop reading a particular book, you can swap the book on their behalf at any time. Go to the reading history for the student, select the book, and then use the Swap or remove book button. You can then choose to swap the book, and provide a reason, which in this case might be due to it being too hard.
Change the student's reading level
Change the student's reading level
If you think the student's reading level is too high or you find that the student really is struggling, you can manually lower their level which will give them lower-level books. Please note that if you lower the student's level it will remain at this level until you make further changes. We sometimes find that this happens if a student gets help from a parent, which causes Sparx Reader to think the student is stronger than they really are.
Find instructions on how to do this in Changing homework for an individual student.
Change students to half-length or optional-only homework
Change students to half-length or optional-only homework
If a student is experiencing difficulties at home, is poorly, or has a special education need that means completing reading each week could be difficult or stressful for them, you might want to make their homework half-length or optional for a while. Making this change removes their compulsory homework but students still have access to the platform to read.
See more information on how to do this in Changing homework for an individual student.
Make sure specific students receive any additional help that may be necessary
Make sure specific students receive any additional help that may be necessary
Ensure that you have completed diagnostic testing for these pupils and that they are receiving bespoke intervention for decoding, language comprehension, vocabulary acquisition and fluency if needed. They should complete these interventions alongside their weekly Sparx Reader homework.
Completing past homework
Completing past homework
Homework is still available for students to complete after the hand-in. Once they've had 6 homeworks set after an incomplete homework that one will no longer be able to be worked on so will remain incomplete.
When students are catching up on old homework, any reading they do will contribute to their active homework, before contributing to older incomplete homeworks.
Supporting lower-attaining students
Sparx Reader offers a wide range of books for students with lower reading ages
We have over 450 books on the platform, catering for students with reading ages between 6 to 17+.
We know that older students who are struggling readers are less likely to engage if they feel their book isn’t age-appropriate, babyish or boring. To support these readers, we have a large number of high interest age, low reading age (Hi-Lo) books (from publishers such as Badger Learning). These Hi-Lo books handle mature content while still being accessible for them to read. This makes them much more appealing and helps to keep older readers with lower reading ages, engaged in their reading.
Sparx Reader ensures books and questions are appropriate to the student's reading age
Sparx Reader ensures books and questions are appropriate to the student's reading age
We offer books to students that are appropriate for their reading age, meaning students with a lower reading age will be offered more accessible books such as those mentioned above.
In our lowest reading age books (5-6), the questions will differ to support these readers. For example, we do not always include a ‘Not in story’ option as we are mindful of managing these readers’ cognitive loads, and for novice readers, it isn’t always appropriate or helpful to include this option. Instead, we vary the nature of the questions by providing gap-fill options, still in a multiple-choice format. In lower-level books (reading age 5-7), while the distractors are there, they are all lifted from the text itself so that the novice reader’s working memory isn’t overloaded with yet more new information.
For pupils with a low reading age, the frequency of the checks will differ too. For our weakest readers, questions appear more frequently and can be as often as every 50-100 words providing them with regular check-in points and constant feelings of success. They will also be presented with fewer questions at each check than those with a higher reading age.
As a reminder, the questions are carefully designed and are based on the most important events, characters and themes from the section the student has just read. This means it should be easy for students to pass if they have read carefully. The language used in the questions is also pitched at the same level as the text itself.
Students will be rewarded for careful reading regardless of their level
Students will be rewarded for careful reading regardless of their level
Sparx Reader Points are adapted to each student's reading speed, meaning that weaker readers have the same likelihood of gaining SRP as their stronger counterparts. By rewarding pupils for how carefully they are reading - regardless of text level - and not how many words or how quickly they’ve read, we are levelling the playing field. All students have the opportunity to experience success.
Sparx Reader helps to develop students' working memory
Sparx Reader helps to develop students' working memory
There are several ways in which Sparx Reader supports lower-attaining students to increase their stores of background knowledge which, in turn, benefits their working memories:
As mentioned above, for weaker readers, the questions appear more regularly. This can encourage the student's working memory to pay attention to certain aspects of the text. In time, they can learn to anticipate the kinds of things that they should look out for.
The questions are designed to help weaker readers process information as the questions focus on narrative threads, recurring themes, salient plot points and prominent character traits, and never draw their attention to insignificant or distracting details. In a sense, they are scaffolding the reading process.
Attention is another key factor to becoming a good reader, in this case as it activates working memory. For example, if you are often asked questions about how a character is feeling, then you will start to pay more attention when a character’s feelings are mentioned, and this makes it more likely to be processed by the working memory.
By rewarding students with points for getting questions right, and attaching feelings of success to the reading process, students are more inclined to build resilience and persevere in paying careful attention to the text.
Frequently asked questions
Why do some students consistently fail their checks?
Why do some students consistently fail their checks?
This often indicates rushing or skim-reading. Encourage these students to slow down and read more carefully. You may want to observe their reading behaviour directly to provide specific guidance.
What if a student finds all their books too difficult?
What if a student finds all their books too difficult?
You can manually lower their Sparx Reading Level through the Student Manager. This will ensure they receive more accessible books aligned with their current reading ability.
How can I help students who take much longer than expected to complete homework?
How can I help students who take much longer than expected to complete homework?
Check their accuracy ratings and activity timeline. If they're frequently failing checks, focus on developing careful reading habits. You might also consider setting them half-length homework temporarily while they build their skills.
What can I do about students using AI services to complete their homework?
What can I do about students using AI services to complete their homework?
The increasing availability, capability and accuracy of AI services like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, mean that it’s becoming more common for students to use them when completing their homework. This challenge is broad-reaching - it potentially affects any work that we ask students to complete at home, be that via worksheets, text books or online services like Sparx Reader.
We’ve been carefully considering the feedback that we’ve been receiving about the impact of this challenge on Sparx Reader homework. Whilst we establish longer-term solutions to this challenge, there are some approaches that you can take to monitor for the potential use of AI services:
Monitor students' reading levels - If you see that their level is above that which you would expect, then this may indicate that they are using an app to answer questions.
Every time students do some reading or answer a question, we learn a bit more about how they read, and that all feeds into our estimate of their current reading level. Regularly using an app to answer questions in Sparx Reader will see a student quickly advance to a level that would ordinarily be inaccessible
Find out more about reading levels in Key concepts of a Sparx Reader homework
Monitor reading times - If students aren’t completing their homework independently, you may notice them spending far less time than you would expect completing their reading.
Ask the student about the book that they're reading - when a student has read carefully, it's likely that they'll be able to confidently talk about key facts about the book.