Easy Readers Only

Originals Only

Originals and Sparx Easy Readers

Originals only:

Originals and Sparx Easy Readers:

We’ve written Sparx Easy Readers for a number of the texts.

These are faithful adaptations that support all students to access the story.

Most sentences have been greatly simplified, but key quotations are kept in and highlighted in bold:

Our Macbeth adaptation includes clarifications on stage directions and is largely written in iambic pentameter, so it feels close to the original while being more accessible to more students.

It’s up to you which texts students read: you might choose to set certain classes the original and others the Easy Reader, or even decide on a per-student basis.

If you need to remove a text:

The student's progress through the text will be saved, and if you later re-assign it, they'll pick up where they left off.

Once students start reading, you will be able to assign them a new read-through.

The progress page will default to each student's current read-through, but this can be changed to view specific read-throughs by using the drop-down selector.

When students are assigned a text, the book will appear on their bookshelf and they will be able to read any unlocked chapter in any order.

Clicking Set Texts in the menu provides an overview of Set Text reading across your school, year group or class. Click on the book to expand the detail so that you can compare progress, how many reads have been completed, and accuracy.

In the Student Progress page, you can view Set Text by class or year group using the class and year group dropdown.

Click ‘Accuracy heat map' to see accuracy by chapter which can be useful to see patterns of struggle on certain chapters.

Yes, there’s no limit to how many different texts you can assign. Just assign the first text, then follow the same process to assign the next text.

As well as reading their set texts, students can choose to read e-books on Sparx Reader in the usual way, by choosing a book from the homepage or Library page. Set texts do not 'take up' any slots in a students' library. They can easily switch between their set text and e-book by clicking "choose a different book" on their homepage.

No, our questions are the same as always: basic fact-retrieval questions designed to test whether students have read that section attentively.

Yes this is something you can now do, simply assign a text and choose which chapters you’d like to have available

No, this one is more complicated as it’s not out of copyright. We know it’s very popular so we’re actively exploring how we could add it.

Yes - you can read Set Texts in Reader through the Student Demo (accessed through the Resources area). The Set Texts will appear in the Library when selecting a new book.

If this is your first time using the student demo, you'll start by reading a short training book and choosing your first book. This helps you see how Reader works from a student’s perspective. You can then return to the student homepage and click 'Library' on the left menu, to see all our Set Texts.

As set texts can be read in different situations (in class, at home, alongside paper based work) a student's reading behaviour during a set text does not affect their normal e-book reading data.

Yes, students will be shown in their current class, and all Set text reading that they’ve done will be shown, including from previous academic years.

If you already have texts assigned, these will have all chapters enabled. To focus on specific chapters, click Text options and then Manage Chapters and Students. From here, you can lock chapters by reducing which ones are available. You’re likely to want the students to start the text again, so you can use the New read-through option, also found by clicking ‘Text options’. This restarts the text for chosen students whilst keeping any chapters locked or unlocked. Previous Read-through details can be viewed using the Read-through dropdown.

Yes. When a teacher assigns a Set Text — such as a GCSE or KS3 curriculum book — students read and interact with it in exactly the same way as any other Sparx Reader book. They'll answer comprehension checks at the end of each section, and earn Sparx Reader Points (SRP) for reading carefully, just as they would with a self-selected book from their library.

This means Set Texts can count towards a student's homework target and appear on the leaderboard alongside their other reading, making them a great way to build accountable, independent reading time around class texts — whether as consolidation of what's been covered in lessons or as preparation ahead of a new unit.

We’ve simplified the navigation to make it easier to use. Simply select the class and book you’re interested in, and you’ll see student progress.

If you lock a chapter, students' progress on that chapter will be saved. If you unlock the chapter again in future, students will be able to continue from where they left off.

If you are teaching a text which is not currently included in Set Texts, please make a suggestion using this form.