Recognising and rewarding students for their reading achievements helps build engagement and motivation. Sparx Reader provides several built-in ways to recognise student progress, along with tools to help you implement your own reward systems.
Inbuilt student recognition features
Inbuilt student recognition features
Sparx Reader Points (SRP)
Sparx Reader Points (SRP)
Students earn SRP for careful reading and successfully completing question checks
Students can earn extra SRP beyond their weekly homework target
Points contribute to various recognition features and can be used in your school's reward system
Student leaderboard
Student leaderboard
In your Sparx Reader site, you will see a "Leaderboard" option in the left-hand menu. Selecting this will show you the same leaderboard, allowing you to select a class or year group to view, as well as seeing the whole school leaderboard, with the same timescales as the students.
You could also use our Reporting feature to keep track of weekly class SRP totals. More information can be found in Accessing and interpreting reports.
Students have the option to enter a Leaderboard which will allow them to see where they rank in:
Their class
Their year
Their school
Students can see their ranking in different timescales including:
This week
Last week
This month
Last month
This year
The timescales refer to calendar weeks (Monday to Sunday), rather than specific homework weeks, as hand out and hand in days may vary across the school. 'This year' covers the current academic year.
Students will also choose from a randomly assigned nickname for themselves as part of joining the Leaderboard.
These images show what the Leaderboard looks like for students:
Achievement resources
Achievement resources
Downloadable Certificates:
Outstanding Effort (for resilience, improvement, or highest weekly SRP)
E-badge templates for SRP achievements for download or use on internal documents:
These can be used to create physical badges or digital recognition.
Posters
Posters
Around the World in 50 Books (Purple background)
Around the World in 50 Books (White background)
This Around the World in 50 Books poster showcases just some of the books in the Sparx Reader Library and where they are set. Why not print this off to display in your school library or an English classroom?
This Books Through Time poster showcases books with stories from the past, the present and the future including many stories about notable historical events. This timeline-based long poster would make a great display on a long wall.
Setting up a rewards system
Setting up a rewards system
Most schools we have spoken to find that using a consistent mixture of rewards and sanctions is the best way to motivate their students to complete their Sparx homework on time.
Lots of schools use SRP (Sparx Reader Points) as the basis for their rewards system. Have a look at our Student Activity Reports which are described in our article Accessing and interpreting reports to find out where to see this data.
SRP (rather than word count) is the best measure of how much work a student has completed because they are adaptive to each student's reading speed.
Using SRP Data
Using SRP Data
You can track student achievement through:
The Student Activity Report
Class completion rates
Individual student totals
Extra SRP earned beyond homework target
Reward ideas
Reward ideas
Popular approaches include:
Individual Rewards
Certificates in assemblies
Postcards or phone calls home
Social media mentions
Lunch queue priority passes
Converting SRP to school merit points
Group Rewards
Pizza parties for highest completing classes
Film afternoons for top performing groups
Class competitions
Year group challenges
Lollipop Friday
Posters on a Sparx display boards
Using the Student Activity Report for rewards
Using the Student Activity Report for rewards
The class with the best completion rates or highest SRP this academic year:
The class with the best completion rate or highest SRP in a particular week:
The student with the highest SRP in a particular week or this academic year:
The student with the highest SRP in a term or half-term:
Frequently asked questions
Can a student choose to not be included on the leaderboard?
Can a student choose to not be included on the leaderboard?
If a student does not want to be included in the Leaderboard, they can exclude themselves by not choosing a name for themselves. If no name has been chosen, the student will not appear.
Can a student remove themselves from the leaderboard once they've joined?
Can a student remove themselves from the leaderboard once they've joined?
Once a student has joined, they can select 'remove' next to where they change their name.