Bug Club is so much more than just a reading programme. The enormous range of fiction, non‑fiction and poetry texts, captures children’s imagination and nurtures lifelong readers. Developing confident and motivated readers, Bug Club combines over 500 finely levelled books with interactive eBooks and an online reading world, giving your children manageable steps in reading progression and a real sense of ongoing achievement as they move through the levels. Teachers allocate books to individual pupils for home reading and assess their progress instantly. A truly engaging interactive world alive with characters they know and love and a sophisticated reward system helps to keep them motivated reading books.

Wherever children want to read – Bug Club will be there. In the classroom, at home, on the move. Bug Club takes children on a personalised reading journey where the only limits are their imaginations.

To log onto Bug Club, simply click on the link below. 

Bug Club

How are Reception and Year 1 books levelled?

In Reception and Year 1, books are aligned to the phonics units in the Bug Club Phonics progression, which is based on Letters and Sounds and has been proven to be effective in teaching young children to read. In Bug Club Independent, we no longer align Reception and Year 1 books to book bands, in line with the Department for Education’s recommendations in their 2021 non-statutory document, The reading framework: teaching the Foundations of Literacy. In this document, the DfE explains: ‘Decodable’ books and other texts make children feel successful from the very beginning. They do not encounter words that include GPCs [grapheme-phoneme correspondences] they cannot decode. If an adult is not present, they are not forced to guess from pictures, the context, the first letters of a word or its shape[…]. ‘Decodable’ books and texts that children read should run alongside or a little behind the teaching of the GPCs, so that they always feel a sense of achievement when they are asked to read such books. It is important that children practise their reading with ‘decodable’ books or texts. They speed up the time they need to gain sufficient accuracy to read a wide range of children’s literature.

How are Year 2 and Key Stage 2 books levelled?

In Year 2 and Key Stage 2, the Bug Club Independent books are levelled by book bands. At this stage, children are expected to be able to decode any words and will start to focus more on increasing their stamina and fluency and on developing and deepening their comprehension skills. The book band levelling ensures that books increase in language complexity and in length gradually, helping children to maintain their confidence by moving on in small, achievable steps. 

Why children love their Bug Club Pupil World:

Reason 1: Children earn coins for reading, and spending them on rewards or seeing them stack up as they progress through the book bands is super-motivating for children.

Reason 2: Children have a private ‘working’ space where no one can see what they’re reading and what level they’re on, which is important to children. If boys want to read about ballet or fairy tales, they can, without feeling any stigma attached to their choice. And it works in the same way for girls too. Star Wars, anyone?

Reason 3: Children love the quizzes in Bug Club Independent and Bug Club Guided KS1 books because these quizzes test their knowledge and understanding of the books they read in a fun way.

Reason 4: In today’s world of avatars, emoticons and selfies, being able to personalise their pupil world is a draw for children. Adding their unique creative ‘layer’ to their world gives them a sense of ownership of their reading, at school and at home.

Reason 5: Every time children open an eBook that’s been allocated to them in their personalised world, it’s like unwrapping a brand new, fresh copy that’s been delivered directly to their ‘door’ just for them.