The Joyful Reading Resource Kit

The Shades books offer fast-paced, shorter stories (just 64pp each) for older readers who may find longer books too daunting, but who still want the excitement of a great story told with pace and style. This great value pack includes 28 titles, with stories encompassing a range of genres such as horror, science fiction, historical fiction and straight modern teen tales. These are great quick reads, with topics to appeal to many different types of readers.

Interest Age: 12 - 18 Years old

Reading Age: 9 - 10 Years old

Dyslexia Friendly

Pages: 64pp

This pack includes the following titles:

Crime Stories Shades Shorts 2.0

Funny Stories Shades Shorts 2.0

Ghosts Stories Shades Shorts 2.0

Sci-Fi Stories Shades Shorts 2.0

Plague

Shouting at the Stars

Hunter's Moon

Who Cares?

Blitz

Hauntings

Mantrap

Coming in to Land

Life of the Party

Treachery by Night

Mind's Eye

Gateway from Hell

Cry, Baby

The Scream

Rising Tide

Stone Robbers

Fire!

Invasion

A Murder of Crows

The Messenger

Fighting Back

Tears of a Friend

Space Explorers

Four Degrees More

A series of uplifting, funny, warm, romantic, contemporary books from a variety of respected authors on topics that girls will relate to, with characters they relate to and enjoy. The upbeat stories feature everyday life, friendship and love from a range of perspectives and cultures.

The stories are designed for girls from ages 12 through to Young Adult who have a reading age of 6 - 8. This allows readers to tackle age appropriate topics in a clear way while improving literacy skills. The language levels have all been carefully designed to make for accessible reads, without losing any of the joy of a good read. In all cases the content is appropriate for inclusion in any school library.

Interest Age: 12 - 18 Years old

Reading Age: 6 - 8 Years old

Word count: 2,126 - 4,895

This pack includes the following titles:

Bad Boy

Ch@t

Forever

GamerHate

I [Heart] Glitter Boy

ILMFG (I Love My Friends Guy)

My Sister's Perfect Husband

Picture Him

Yasmin's Journey

Time to Live

This pack of 24 books contains fictionalised biographies of 21 fantastic football players and three of the world's best managers. Ransom's Tales from the Pitch series, is great for encouraging even the most reluctant reader. These books offer strong stories and lots of football.

Each of these fast-moving reads, focuses on one football superstar, many of them up-and-coming players who are yet to reach the summit of their career. From Erling Haaland to Lionel Messi, these biographies cover the full range of football both in Europe and beyond. The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, to ultimately make their dreams come true. So meet the fresh young talent behind the iconic tackles and goals and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Interest Age: 7 - 18 Years old

Reading Age: 9 - 10 Years old

This pack includes the following titles:

Felix

Gnabry

Haaland

Kane

Kante

Kelly

Lewandowski

Mahrez

Mbappe

Messi

Neymar

Pulisic

Rashford

Ronaldo

Saka

Salah

Sancho

Silva

Son

Sterling

Van Dijk

Guardiola

Klopp

Southgate

“Zone 13” is a high interest age, low reading age series covering the supernatural. These exciting action packed stories appeal to children with a love of the unexplained. The set includes the following titles:

The Shadow from the Past

Crawlers

Space Weeds

A nest of Aliens

Interest Age 8 – 14 years

Reading Age 8 – 9 years

This is a gripping and edgy reinvention of the vampire genre. Mixing the contemporary world of YouTube and smartphones with the centuries-old, traditional vampires of yesteryear, these must-read books have high appeal for both boys and girls.

Start with Die Now or Live Forever, then read the other books in any order. Follow these new young vampires as they struggle to cope with immortality and their craving for human blood. From Juliette modelling in Paris to rising music star Finn and would-be scientist Omar, they face tough challenges and deadly threats.

Interest Age: 12+ years

Reading Age: 9 years

Titles in the series are:

Die Now or Live Forever

Drop Dead, Gorgeous

Life Sucks

In Cold Blood

Dead on Arrival

Bloodsucking for Beginners

Every Drop of Your Blood

The Starchasers series is classic, fast paced, high action space adventures are perfect for children aged 8-14 who have a reading age of 8-9. The books follow the antics of the Starchasers - a team of freelance space adventurers who will take on just about any mission that's legal and earns good money.

The exciting plots and entertaining characters ensure Starchasers are classic, simple and rewarding reads for reluctant and struggling readers. Supported by superb black and white illustrations throughout, each story is approximately 2600 words long, with carefully controlled vocabulary and simple sentences that will help carry the reluctant reader from beginning to end.

Interest Age: 8 - 14 Years old

Reading Age: 8 - 9 Years old

In Jungle Planet the Starchasers are out of work and hard up for cash so they decide to explore the far reaches of space for a money-making opportunity. A planet covered in thick jungle grabs their attention so Suma and Finn take the lander down to get a closer look. Distracted by his virtual games helmet, Finn doesn't notice the jungle advancing until it's too late. The planet is alive with thick rubbery creepers and it has the lander in it's grips! It's up to Misha to land the Lightspinner and come to Finn and Suma's rescue. Can she negotiate the viscious vines? And will the jungle hold the treasures the Starchasers are searching for?

In The Planet of the Vampiresthe Starchasers are lost deep in space and Rob, their onboard computer is riddled with viruses. Without any of their controls working and only 24hrs of oxygen left, the team make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. Soon the Lightspinner is surrounded by menacing black cats howling in the night. When day comes the cats have disappeared and the team set about making repairs but minutes later Misha is gone. Can Finn and Suma rescue her from the grips of the planet's thirsty inhabitants? And how will they find the money to fix Rob and continue their space adventures?

The Breakouts pack contains eight titles, with stories ranging from shark attacks on an Australian beach, peril in the Himalayas, witches, ghosts and dystopian futures.

These are strong modern, adventurous stories for both boys and girls. This series offer a challenging read in terms of ideas and vocabulary but in a style and length that make them easier to read. These books are perfect for readers who have gained a bit more confidence in reading and who are after a more challenging read in terms of ideas and vocabulary but who aren't yet ready for longer, more demanding reads.

Interest Age: 9 - 13 years

Reading Age: 10 years

Titles in the series:

The Last Time I Died

Young Blood

The Witch's Daughter

Magpie

Dead in the Water

Strangers on a Plane

Peril in the Snow

In the Dark of Night

A trilogy of books in the Pick Your Path series. The books offers a fresh take on the traditional 'Choose your own adventure' format. These are short, strong, fast-moving stories, offering short, low-level texts. Every page requires the reader to choose the next course of action in the story. These are not just books; they are fully interactive adventures that will have the reader guessing and guessing - what happens next? The reader decides!

With strong, 'unbook-like' layouts, these black and white illustrated are perfect for building reading stamina: if the reader is 'killed' the first time, they can keep reading it until they find the route.

In Moon Unit an alien battlecraft attacks your lunar mining base.

In Ring Bearer a hoard of wraiths are after your ring - a sacred magical relic.

In Zombie Storm the zombies attack your burger van.

Interest Age: 11 to 16

Reading Age: 7 - 8

Note: some of the content of this book is not appropriate for readers under the age of eleven

Dark Man is a hugely successful series for teens and young adults with very low reading levels. The gritty and mysterious books grip readers even though the text is limited. The sinister atmosphere and strong black-and-white illustrations entice even the most reluctant of teen readers. The dark tales have a 'grown-up' style which doesn't patronise the reader. Set Three provides a higher level of readers. The books can be read in any order and can be used just as great age appropriate reads for those new to the Dark Man or as progression from Sets One and Two.

This pack contains the third six books in the series: Killer in the Dark
Dying for the Dark
The Day is Dark
The Dark Candle
The Dark Machine
The Dark Words

At least 10% of children do not reach their full potential because they have difficulties with reading due to a SpLD, ADHD or reading in their non-native language. TextAid removes this barrier to learning by reading any text aloud. ReadSpeaker are world leaders in computer voice technology and the natural sounding voice will read back any text including worksheets, exam papers, pages of a book and websites. ReadSpeaker TextAid is browser based which means you don't need to download it onto specific devices. Students can use it in the classroom, at home and on their phone or tablet and all their work is saved into their online library. TextAid now reads in Irish also.

As well as text-to-speech there are other tools too including a screen ruler, text mode to make text easier to read, translation, word prediction, download as audio and a highlighter tool which extracts key information.

It allows students to work independently and improve comprehension. Students simply click play to listen to any text, reducing the need to rely on adult support. TextAid will read any document, even websites and text in a picture. Students can concentrate on the content rather than decoding individual words