Free Rapid Reading samples

Thousands of schools up and down the country use Rapid to help their struggling and disadvantaged children, in mainstream and those with SEN, catch up in reading. 

The Rapid programme is a collection of resources to support you in your work with children who find reading difficult that provides:

  • finely-levelled fiction and non-fiction readers
  • motivating software for reading practice
  • assessment texts to monitor pupils’ reading progress
  • photocopiable worksheets to consolidate word-level work
  • lesson plans for guided reading sessions
  • guidance and teaching support, within the readers and the teaching guides.

"The Rapid Reading books were a delight to read with the children. During the Covid-19 lockdown I worked twice a week with key worker children. We took one afternoon to read these together as a group and discuss them. Each book is beautifully illustrated with engaging images which can be used as a discussion point." – Miss H, Literacy Lead, Greater London

Teaching and Assessment Guides

Rapid Readers

Loads of fiction and non-fiction books (all stages) as well as plays and poetry (stages 7–9) with a variety of engaging topics, from animals to space travel, to hook in even the most reluctant readers!

Each text is a whole reading experience. The text is always introduced by means of a Before Reading page, which sets the scene, introduces the characters or topic, and launches the pupil into independent reading. The text is then followed by a Quiz page, which invites the pupil to revisit the text, and helps to develop comprehension and word-level skills.

Each Rapid text has been developed to ensure that pupils make steady progress in their reading.

*The short play script in each book is based on the fiction story from the same book, with the same characters and/or situations so that children can feel confident as they begin to read this new text type. The poem in each book is based on a theme from the fiction and all poems are written especially for Rapid. They have the same careful levelling as other text types, so they are at just the right level for struggling readers.

Rapid Reading component chart

See our full range of Rapid Reading resources.

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