Applications for year 7 entry in September 2025 are now open.

Reading ages & supporting your child

Parents and Carers

Reading is one of the most important skills your child will learn to do. Like all skills, improvement comes with practice. As of this year, Thorns Collegiate Academy is offering all students in Year 7 and 8 an exciting new initiative called Accelerated Reader. It is a powerful tool for monitoring and managing independent reading practice while promoting reading for pleasure. Your child currently reads for twenty minutes every day as part of the curriculum.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) defines the readability range within which pupils should read to best develop their reading, while avoiding frustration. Every half term your child will sit a 20 minute STAR Reading Test to generate a ZPD Range that Form Tutors will give to the students to write in their planners. Students then choose a book to read that fits within that range from the newly resourced L4L library. E.g ZPD Range of 3.3 – 5.2

In each Accelerated Reader Book Level, there are 10 sub levels. For example, Level 3 has; 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9. There are 10 different books to choose from within each level

When a book has been read, your child then takes a Reading Practice Quiz to determine how well they understood the content of the book. As they read and improve their understanding of different books their ZPD will change accordingly, in the hope that it ultimately increases and your child becomes a more affluent reader.