Gold Reader exists as a reward for trusted students who demonstrate consistent, careful reading on Sparx Reader. This article explains how students unlock Gold Reader, how they add physical books, and how they can log their reading through Gold Reader.
When students have done enough additional reading, they’ll receive a Gold Reader pass.
This allows them to read any physical book and earn SRP by keeping a reading log.
No reading log system could ever be perfect so Gold Reader should be seen as a system of trust that allows students to read with some more freedom: it isn’t an equivalent alternative to ebook reading.
That’s why Gold Reader passes are time-limited: if we want students getting the benefit of regular, careful, attentive reading practice, they should continue to use Sparx Reader’s ebook system which has regular checks to ensure students are reading.
Unlocking Gold Reader
Unlocking Gold Reader
Students doing additional reading on top of their compulsory homework will be rewarded with gold stars
300 extra SRP earns one gold star
Once a student earns 5 gold stars, they are awarded a Gold Reader pass which lasts for 5 weeks
Conscientious students can retain their pass indefinitely if they continue to do additional ebook reading, earning their 5 gold stars during the 5-week pass
Students can see their Gold Reader status on their 'Home' page
Note - students are only able to earn gold stars if they don't have any previous incomplete homeworks to catch up on (extra SRP will automatically be assigned to previous incomplete tasks if they have any outstanding)
Teacher control over Gold Reader access
Teacher control over Gold Reader access
Manually awarding Gold Reader passes
Manually awarding Gold Reader passes
In most cases, we recommend that you don’t manually award Gold Reader passes; instead, it’s best for students to unlock them themselves by doing additional reading.
This is because Gold Reader is largely a system of trust and can never be as precise as normal Sparx Reader ebook reading in telling you how much students have read.
If you want a student to be able to use Gold Reader without the student having to earn 5 gold stars first, you can grant a Gold Reader pass manually:
Go to More → Student Manager
Select the student's class
Click on the pencil icon next to the student
Scroll to the 'Gold Reader' section
Click Grant Gold Reader pass → confirm that you want to grant the pass
Extending Gold Reader passes
Extending Gold Reader passes
In most cases, we recommend that you don’t extend Gold Reader passes. Instead, it’s best to let them expire and for students to earn their next pass. This means they’ll be getting the benefits of the careful, attentive reading that’s required for normal ebook reading on Sparx Reader.
If you want to give a student longer to use their Gold Reader pass, you can extend its deadline:
Go to More → Student Manager
Select the student's class
Click on the pencil icon next to the student
Scroll to the Gold Reader section
Click Set a new expiry date
Choose the new expiry date
Click Save
Preventing access to Gold Reader
Preventing access to Gold Reader
If you don't want a student to be able to earn a Gold Reader pass, you can prevent access:
Go to More → Student Manager
Select the student's class
Click on the pencil icon next to the student
Scroll to the Gold Reader section
Tick Prevent <student> from unlocking or using Gold Reader
Click Save
Adding books to the Gold Reader library
Adding books to the Gold Reader library
In order to be able to log their reading in Gold Reader, students need to add their physical books to their Gold Reader library.
Adding a book by scanning its barcode
Adding a book by scanning its barcode
The student will need to:
Go to the Gold Reader page
Click Add a book
Click Scan barcode
Their browser may ask them to allow Sparx Reader to access their camera, which they'll need to allow
Hold barcode on their book up to the camera until Sparx Reader successfully detects it
Click Add this book
Enter the page numbers that the story starts and ends on (this allows us to more accurately track the student's progress through the book).
Adding a book by entering its ISBN
Adding a book by entering its ISBN
The student will need to:
Go to the Gold Reader page
Click Add a book
Enter the book's ISBN number
Click Add this book
Enter the page numbers that the story starts and ends on (this allows us to more accurately tack the student's progress through the book).
Recording reading progress with Gold Reader
Recording reading progress with Gold Reader
In order to record reading progress and earn SRP for physical books, students need to log their reading sessions in Gold Reader.
To do this, the student will need to:
Go to the Library page
Choose the Gold Reader book that they want to read
Click Start reading
Enter the page numbers that they'll start reading from, and the last three words on this page (this helps us to check for genuine reading)
A timer will start
We recommend that students log their reading progress every 20 minutes.
To do this, the student will need to:
Click Next from the timer screen
Enter the page number that they're on now; indicate whether this is the last page in the story; enter the last three words on this page; and confirm how long they read for
Click Next
To help to check for comprehension of the text that's been read, the student will need to enter a question and answer relevant to the text.
Click Finish
Students can only mark a book as finished once they have completed the entire book. They should not tick "I have finished this book" until then.
There may be a delay in a Gold Reader student receiving some of their SRP while we check their reading logs. However, they will receive enough to complete their current task immediately.
Once a student has completed their current homework task, any extra SRP that they earn will go into a bank. If we're happy the student is reading carefully, the student will then be awarded their banked points when they complete the book.
If the student's reading behaviour doesn't seem right:
They may not receive all of their banked SRP
They may received a warning that they haven't been using Gold Reader properly
If the student receives multiple warnings, they will lose access to Gold Reader and will have to go back to reading ebooks.
How we carry out checks and allocate banked SRP
How we carry out checks and allocate banked SRP
As students read a Gold Reader book, they will always earn enough SRP immediately to complete their current homework task. This is shown in green text in the screenshot below from the book’s Reading History on a student's account.
Any additional SRP earned is added to a bank (shown in the screenshot below in gold text as “+802 banked”) and is only awarded after the book has been marked as completed and a series of checks has been carried out. This helps prevent students from claiming large amounts of SRP through unreliable or inaccurate reading logs.
Automatic checks and manual review
Automatic checks and manual review
Once a student marks a book as completed, the system runs a set of automatic checks overnight. In simple terms, these checks look at things like:
How many reading logs were completed. Our guidance to students and teachers is to log reading roughly every 20 minutes. So, for a book of around 300 pages, we’d typically expect to see at least 8–20 logs, if not more. We also remind students that they need to log regularly in order to earn their full SRP for a book.
Whether the reading speed looks reasonable for the student.
Signs of skipping large sections, extremely short answers, or unreadable responses.
Whether the time recorded by the student matches the time recorded by Sparx.
Following these automatic checks, students may then be allocated none, some or all of their banked SRP. If the system isn’t confident that points should be awarded, or if the total banked SRP is over 5,000, the book is automatically sent for manual review. In these cases, all banked SRP is temporarily withheld until the review is complete. Manual reviews can take up to 10 working days to be completed, sometimes slightly longer during busy periods.
How to check if a student has received their banked Gold Reader SRP or not
How to check if a student has received their banked Gold Reader SRP or not
The best place to see this is in the student’s Reading History.
If a Gold Reader book has not yet been checked or the points allocated you will see this in the SRP column:
The SRP displayed in black text on the screenshot is what has been awarded to the student straight away as part of their homework tasks (0 in this screenshot).
The +852 banked in gold text, details that the student has earned 852 of banked SRP which will be checked and allocated once the book has been completed.
If a Gold Reader book has been checked and the appropriate banked points have been decided upon and allocated you will see this in the SRP column:
The SRP displayed in black text is the total number of SRP that has been allocated for this book following the relevant checks In the screenshot above this is 2007 SRP. This is made up of a combination of:
Any SRP earned automatically as part of their homework task
The appropriate number of banked points (either none, some or all) allocated
Where it says + 0 banked in gold text, this means the checks have been completed and all the banked points that are going to be awarded (either none, some or all) have been added to the black total and there are no banked points left to allocate.
Monitoring usage of Gold Reader
Monitoring usage of Gold Reader
Teachers can monitor students access to, and use of Gold Reader:
The Insights page shows which students have access to Gold Reader (indicated by a gold star)
The Hand-in page shows which books students have read via Gold Reader. Clicking on the student will show their reading logs.
We carry out some automated checks of students' Gold Reader activity. If we believe that a student is not reading carefully they will receive a warning. If the student receives multiple warnings, they will lose access to Gold Reader and will have to go back to reading ebooks (the teacher will be notified of the revocation). You can see a warning next to a student's name on the hand-in page, indicated by a flag symbol:
Turning Gold Reader off for the whole school
Turning Gold Reader off for the whole school
Please note this is not reversible
It is possible to turn off Gold Reader for the whole school if this isn't something you'd like students to have access to in your setting. You can do this by visiting School Settings > Advanced Settings.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't my student add their book to Gold Reader?
Why can't my student add their book to Gold Reader?
If a student sees the message "this book is not available", it's possible they have not entered the right ISBN. Some books can have various ISBN's due to new editions being published. You can verify ISBNs online using ISBN Search or ISBN DB - please do this before contacting us as this almost always resolves the issue when another ISBN is used.
Check that:
The student is using the correct ISBN number (usually 13 digits long)
The student is using the ISBN for the specific book, not the whole series
The ISBN matches the exact edition of the book that they have (check the copyright page inside)
What does "This book is not supported" mean?
What does "This book is not supported" mean?
If a student sees the wording "this book is not supported", this means it is a book we have restricted due to some words used within their title or description not being appropriate. If you consider the book to be appropriate, please let us know.
How can my student remove a Gold Reader book?
How can my student remove a Gold Reader book?
If a student doesn't want to continue with a book they are reading in Gold Reader, they can mark it as complete by completing another log and selecting "Yes" for the question: "Was this the final page of the story?". It is not possible to remove a book from Gold Reader.
Why are my Gold Reader students missing SRP?
Why are my Gold Reader students missing SRP?
Students need to press the button to say they have completed their books so they are showing as 100% complete. If you're seeing a completion of 89%, this usually means the button has not been pressed. There may be a delay in receiving some SRP while reading logs are checked.
Students will always receive enough to complete current their current homework task(s).
Extra SRP goes into a bank and is awarded when the book is completed following a series of checks. This helps prevent students from claiming huge amounts of SRP with spurious reading logs.
What if students are misusing Gold Reader?
What if students are misusing Gold Reader?
Gold Reader is a system of trust: we give students more freedom, and we broadly trust their reading logs.
While we have some automated checks to prevent misuse, it’s never possible for a system of reading logs to be as precise as the ebook reading experience on Sparx Reader.
So, we recommend:
Seeing Gold Reader as a reward for trusted students who unlock it themselves
Treating ebook reading as the default way of ensuring regular attentive reading practice
Not granting or extending Gold Reader passes to students
Occasional spot checks of reading logs. If you see a student is completing spurious logs, you should remove their Gold Reader access
Can students catch up on old homework using Gold Reader?
Can students catch up on old homework using Gold Reader?
No, students can only catch up on old homework reading e-books.
Why has my student not received their banked points yet?
Why has my student not received their banked points yet?
When a student completes a Gold Reader book, we first run some automatic checks and if the student's logs pass this check, they are awarded their banked points within 24 hours. However, if there are any inconsistencies in the student's logs (for example, if the student said they read for longer than they recorded on the timer), these are flagged as needing manual review before the banked points are released. These manual checks can take up to 10 days to complete.
Do you send a book completion email for Gold Reader books?
Do you send a book completion email for Gold Reader books?
No, we don't currently send this for Gold Reader books.
How can I identify Gold Readers in my school?
How can I identify Gold Readers in my school?
You can see which students have unlocked Gold Reader by looking for gold stars next to their student level on the Insights Page.
The Student Insights Report also has a column identifying if each student currently has access to Gold Reader.
Why is a book showing as removed or has a missing title?
Why is a book showing as removed or has a missing title?
We have recently (November 2025) improved our filtering of age-appropriate content for books outside of our Sparx library that students can choose on Gold Reader.
As a result of this work, the titles, book covers, and descriptions of some previously added Gold Reader books will no longer be visible. Please note that students’ homework completion, SRP, and reading logs will not be affected.