Reading Age and Reports

The Value of Reading and Reading Age on Your Child’s Report

Dear Parents / Carers,

You will have no doubt noticed that your child’s latest report now includes ‘Accelerated Reader’ and your child’s reading age.

There is an ever-increasing body of research that says regular reading is a vital tool to support both the well-being and academic development of young people.

The research says that some of the impacts for students who read regularly and widely include:

Improving their ability to read (practice makes perfect!)
Improving the ability to concentrate
Developing vocabulary and language skills
Developing knowledge of the world around them
Developing their imagination
Improving relaxation and reduces stress

Students who read more frequently achieve more highly across all subjects.

Taking this into consideration, we will now include reading age on your child’s report to enable you to best support their academic progress at home.

Accelerated Reader (AR)

Here at Manshead CE Academy we use the Accelerated Reader program to track Y7 and Y8 students’ reading progress and ensure that students have appropriate library books. Once a student finishes their book, they complete a quiz to demonstrate understanding of what they have read. This tells us that those students who read regularly, and hit their accelerated reader targets, see an improvement in their reading age which is on average 5 months greater than their peers who do not read regularly across the academic year.

For these reasons, we believe that regular reading for all pupils is an essential part of achieving our school vison – “High achievement and a strong sense of well-being for all is our shared responsibility”

As such, we have a regular focus on reading in lessons, read a news article in form time each week and run a range of interventions to support students reading. We would ask for your support in encouraging your child to read their Accelerated Reader book for at least 15 minutes each day at home. Reading aloud to an adult has been shown to be a highly effective way of developing a students’ ability to read.

Accelerated Reader – Effort

As with all subjects, your child’s effort with accelerated reader is described on their report. Below is a description of what these effort statements translate into in terms of reading.

Always demonstrates outstanding effort – Your Child is reading and quizzing more regularly than expected, well done!

Consistently demonstrates good effort – Your child is reading and quizzing regularly (approximately 15 minutes per day but this can vary depending on the reading age of the child)

Usually demonstrates effort – Your child is reading and quizzing sporadically, increasing the amount they read is recommended to better support progress in all subjects.

Regularly makes insufficient or poor effort – Your child is not reading and quizzing. Your support is required in ensuring your child reads regularly at home to improve progress across all subjects

Accelerated Reader – Progress

Progress is measured based on the improvement in your child’s reading age since their last reading age assessment. Your child’s reading age should increase by a month every month if they are making expected progress.

Making above expected progress –Your child’s reading age has increased by more than 1 month for every month between tests.

Making expected progress – Your child’s reading age has increased by 1 month every month between tests

Making some progress – Your child’s reading age has increased since their last reading age assessment, but at a rate slower than 1 month every month.

Making limited progress – Your child’s reading age has not increased between reading age tests.

If you have any questions or would like further advice on how to support your child’s progress with reading, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Your continued support is very much appreciated.