Reading lessons to develop functional reading and life skills. 

Rockerbox Reading Ladders is age neutral, comes with easy-to-follow lesson plans, and provides the flexibility you need for your unique setting.

How Rockerbox Reading Ladders Works

1. Download a Lesson Plan

Teachers have instant access to easy-to-follow lesson plans that have plenty of flexibility built in. Pick a topic that links to current affairs, a special interest, or a theme you are covering. New lesson plans are added weekly so the articles covered are timely and relevant for your pupils.

2. Access the Dedicated Article

Each lesson plan relates to a non-fiction article on Rockerbox News and has related quiz questions. Every article is available at 6+ different levels online and offline via the Rockerbox News platform. Personalise British accent ‘read alouds’ – including higher levels for those with advanced listening comprehension – and accessibility features for each pupil.

3. Select Ready-Made Resources

Our education team creates a number of ‘ready-to-print’ resources to accompany your lessons. These include Colourful Semantics worksheets, vocabulary lists, and extended reading lists for pupils that want to explore further. Simply download the appropriate resources for your pupils.

4. Download the Functional Text

Related functional texts (accessible 6+ ways) and physical activities put new vocabulary and knowledge into action, showing your pupils how empowering reading can be. Expect recipes, product reviews, instruction leaflets, and more.

5. Quickly Identify Areas of Need

Your Rockerbox News teacher portal automatically tracks and reports on your pupils’ comprehension strengths and areas of need. You can use your Teacher Portal to quickly assign personalised texts and activities too.

6. Read Across Your Curriculum

We believe reading is not something that should be limited to English lessons. Your pupils and teachers have full access to the thousands of articles on Rockerbox News online as part of your subscription so that you can read right across your curriculum.

The Children have Been Very Engaged with the Articles

The children have been very engaged with the articles and love to tell each other and the class teachers what they have discovered reading about. They enjoy the mix of pictures and text and the subjects written about. Having a view of how well the children answer questions has been useful for staff.

Flora Ellis, Deputy Headteacher

My Class Had Their First Go at Rockerbox News This Morning and Loved It!

Sam Addington, Teacher

Our Whole Journey as a School with Rockerbox News has Been So Well Organised

Our whole journey as a school with Rockerbox News has been so well organised and facilitated it has been excellent and our students love it.

Jim Robinson, Headteacher
JFK Special School

The Children Love It!

Rockerbox News is a fantastic reading resource for non-fiction text based on various topics. The topics are up to date and relevant. Many are subjects that the reader may have no previous knowledge of. They are written clearly and concisely, which quickly and effectively engages children to read more. Articles vary from bite-sized fact-based articles to much longer, complex texts, so it is very easy to provide differentiation. This differentiation really helps with children with English as an additional language and others with a lower standard of reading than their peers.

Olga Hopper, Assistant Head and EAL Lead for Suffolk

Where has Rockerbox News BEEN for the last 20+ years I’ve been teaching?

Rockerbox News is an innovative resource and method for teaching reading excellence. The whole system is highly flexible for teachers and the levelled articles match with phonic teaching schemes. As a headteacher and executive headteacher, Rockerbox News decreases the workload for teachers.

Sue Street
Executive Head and School Improvement Officer

Genuinely Innovative!

The judges were impressed by the factual approach of this programme. The regularly updated resources, presenting current news items to children in ways that spark conversation and engagement is genuinely innovative.

The levels of differentiation across all key stages provide resources to engage all pupils and make the investment one that leaders and budget holders will see as benefiting the entire school.

The Judges 2023
Education Resource Awards

Once Set Up, It Is Easy to Use.

Once set up, it is easy to use. Kayleigh and the team are so helpful and constantly provide updates and incentives for the children. We use Rockerbox News mainly for homework. We also use Rockerbox News to encourage children to read a wider variety of texts as well as for those children who mainly prefer reading non-fiction.

Hannah Blow, Teacher

Affordable Platform. High-Quality Texts.

Rockerbox News is a fantastic non-fiction platform which promotes reading for pleasure and supports children to become active global citizens, developing their understanding of the wider world – and their place in it. Rockerbox News gave me instant access to stimulating and informative articles;this not only saved me time as a teacher searching for appropriate fit-for-purpose articles but also enabled me to feel confident that all the children could access high-quality information that was appropriate for their age and reading ability.

Emma Gorman, Assistant Headteacher

All Schools Should Have This!

We have been using Rockerbox News since September 2022 and without a doubt, the platform has been the most well-received, cost-effective platform and intervention we have introduced for a long, long time. Extremely easy to set-up and administer, our subscription to Rockerbox News added thousands of short, non-fiction articles to the school library overnight…A great platform which brings great impact at a great price – all schools should have this!

John Moore, Headteacher

We love sharing the leaderboards and being a part of a healthy competition!

Already, as a KS2 team, we are noticing improvements in engagement and enjoyment of non fiction reading – which Rockerbox News has helped to harness; especially with our tech-savvy, slightly more reluctant readers.
Chris Summerfield, Teacher

Rockerbox News has Transformed Reading for Some of Our Young People.

We are so pleased that almost every child using Rockerbox News across our school has made quantifiable progress in their reading assessments. More importantly, they are enjoying reading. They read for pleasure, are keen to find new articles and share what they have learnt. Rockerbox News as a company is supportive, proactive and keen to listen to feedback. Having a school success manager means I know that any queries I have will be picked up quickly, which isn’t always the case with other providers.
Ellis Cooper, Year 5 Teacher
Stapleford Community Primary School

An Inclusive Platform

It is clear that Rockerbox is an inclusive, supportive, empowering and positive platform for all students, including those with additional needs.

Anna Speke
nasen

The Children in My Class Love Rockerbox News

The children in my class love Rockerbox News and ask to see how many articles each child has read. It has been a fun way to engage my reluctant readers and is a paperless resource for homework.

Lesley Corocan

Engages Children of ALL Ages and Abilities.

We have seen so much engagement from children who have been previously disengaged with so many things. For example, yesterday we had a child create his own survey based on an article he had read about otters in Singapore, which he then conducted with members of staff around the school. He was so proud of himself and so were we. Previously, this child wouldn’t even lift up a pencil!

Katie Rawlings, SENCo

An All-Round Winner!

I don’t know many teenage boys who punch the air and shout “yes!” when they are told it is time for reading. Yet, that is exactly what is happening since we have started to use Rockerbox News in school. The students love the articles and are highly motivated to complete as many of the knowledge checkers as they can. As a teacher, it pleases me beyond measure to see their enthusiasm and engagement and it has also had the bonus of dramatically reducing my planning time.

Jackie Bushnell, Literacy Lead

Download your free discovery pack PLUS a free trial

Just complete the form below so we can set you up with free trial access to Rockerbox Reading Ladders and send your discovery pack right over!


Introductory Offer

£ 20 .00 per pupil*

FOR YOUR FIRST YEAR

*based on a minimum of 5 pupils per subscription. Not including an optional Widgit level add-on of £50 per school

  • Unlimited training and support
  • New lesson plans added weekly
  • Articles and functional texts made accessible 5+ways
  • A selection of ready-to-print resources with each plan
  • Unlimited teacher and school reporting dashboards
  • Unlimited access to Rockerbox News online and via the app for pupils