Showing posts 1–10 (325 total posts)

Fostering a Love of Reading: Insights from Tracey Frohawk

27 February, 2025

Tracey Frohawk, the Trust Librarian for Learning Without Limits Academy Trust in Leicestershire has been instrumental in implementing Renaissance Solutions like Accelerated Reader, Star Reading and myON across three secondary schools and two primary schools. Her practices have significantly boosted literacy and fostered a love of reading among pupils. In this blog, we explore how Tracey has created a vibrant reading culture, engaged pupils through responsibility, and supported all reading levels.

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Reading for nourishment: Insights from Jeffrey Boakye

5 February, 2025

Jeffrey Boakye is best known for his works that explore themes of identity, race, and social justice. His notable book, "Musical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain," won the Accelerated Reader Quiz Writers' Choice Secondary Non-Fiction Award, highlighting his impact on readers and educators alike. Margaret Allen, Customer Advocacy Manager at Renaissance, interviewed Jeffrey on the benefits of reading and why our perspective on it needs to change.

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Assessing Writing with Matt Beighton

15 January, 2025

Peer assessment relies on children being able to read and then comprehend their peer’s work. If you are pairing a child writing at a higher level with somebody at a lower level, there is a good chance that the lower-level child won’t be able to access the writing. It will have a reading level above where they are.

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How to Spark a Love of Reading in Pupils

13 January, 2025

Recent reports show a worrying decline in pupils' reading habits. Our latest What Kids Are Reading Report found a 4.4% drop in the number of books read by over 1.2 million pupils across the UK and Ireland, from Year 1 to Year 11.

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SATs Paper Analysis

13 January, 2025

Back in 2021, we first shared some analysis we’d completed in a post entitled ‘ATOS & SATs – the perfect match’, which looked at the reading ability children required to comprehend the questions posed in the papers. For almost every year since both SATs and  GCSE papers were available, we have continued to complete this analysis, and it is always well received by our customers – even if the results can be surprising.

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