How Accelerated Reader has transformed reading at St. Margaret Ward Catholic Academy

October 7th 2019

Accelerated Reader has been delivered at St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy for five years now, and during this time has gone from strength to strength. In the early days, we were getting approximately 30–40 pupils achieving Millionaire status in a year. By July this year, there were 77 Millionaires in Years 7 and 8, and we achieved Renaissance Master Class status. I am so proud of all of our pupils!

The AR programme has definitely inspired our pupils to read for pleasure – we are now a school that really loves reading. The library has evolved into a reading room, with many of the pupils sitting on sofas and beanbags lost in a book. I can now get between 50 and 60 pupils choosing to stay in, sit quietly and read during break and lunchtime.

Building reading into the timetable every day, and using AR as an incentive has really worked to encourage the importance of books. I reward for progress made, targets met and words read! Millionaires get an invite to a Millionaires ‘tea party,’ with china cups and saucers and lots of cake. There are always lots of buzz around these, and all the pupils are excited to find out who’ll be next. Each pupil has a personal target set for them every term. Earlier this year, one pupil exceeded his target by 1040%! Another pupil has recently been our first to reach ten million words (120 books) in just eighteen months. As a reward, we’ll be taking him and a couple of friends out for the day.

We also run competitions, a ‘book in a box’ promotion, film club, and spooky/Christmas story times to tie in with books from the shelves. And, we do an annual visit to Peters to buy books with pupils who have hit 5 million words. They love seeing all of the new books! They choose a book for themselves, and select books chosen by the pupils from school to stock the library. We also run a Readathon, where pupils can have a day of reading and relaxing followed by a yoga session. The last one had 40 sign ups in less than two hours!

It fills me with pride to witness daily a love for reading, and to look around around the library and see so many pupils of all ages settled, relaxed and engaged in a book. I know we have built up an ethos of reading at St. Margaret Ward building reading into the timetable every day and the pupils are thriving and developing with such a vital and important skill. It shows with the ever growing social media focus, they still love a book – and hopefully always will!

Nikki Barnett, Accelerated Reader Manager and Librarian, St. Margaret Ward Catholic Academy

Find out more about Accelerated Reader™