At DMA we love promoting the love for reading. Reading helps us in every area of our lives. It helps us become successful in school and later in our careers and it helps us grow as individuals by either teaching us new information or by allowing us to step into someone else’s shoes. Reading can also help us become more compassionate and empathetic, as well as give us pure enjoyment and relaxation. Instilling a love of reading is one of the best lifetime gifts Downham Market Academy can give our students.

At Downham market Academy we use Renaissance Accelerated Reader, a popular reading programme used in public and private schools. The National Literacy Trust has produced three independent reports into the impact of Renaissance Accelerated Reader on students’ reading habits. These reports both showed that students who use Accelerated Reader have more positive attitudes towards reading than their peers.

Accelerated Reader also allows us to track students independent practice and progress with reading. The idea behind Accelerated Reader is that students enjoy reading more when they can select their own books, which they can do through the accelerated Reader Book Finder or independently. Students make most progress when they read books that interest them and we are confident that our students will enjoy reading the fantastic books we have in our remarkably well-stocked Library.