In short
- According to Foxton Books' website, Foxton Readers has seven levels, each with a headword limit and a CEFR band, plus quizzes, homework tools and reports.
- Before you look at alternatives, name what you want to change: the texts, the follow-up, or how reading time is organised.
- Judge any option on five criteria: a level system you can check, enough text per level, light follow-up, a fixed place in the timetable, and room for your own texts.
- Test a sample page with your own pupils, because the research on how many words a reader must know comes mostly from adults.
Foxton Readers is a clearly described product, so a comparison can start from facts. This article describes it briefly from its owner's website. It then sets out the criteria a school should use to judge any alternative, because the criteria matter more than the brand. This article is published by iRead, which sells a reading platform that competes with Foxton Readers. Product details come from Foxton Books' website as checked in October 2026. Check current details with each vendor before you decide.
What should you look for in a Foxton Readers alternative?
Look for the thing you want to change, and check that the alternative keeps what already works. Write the change down in one sentence. It is likely to be one of three: different texts, a different kind of follow-up, or reading that happens in scheduled class time instead of at home.
Then judge every option, including Foxton Readers itself, on the same five criteria:
- A level system you can check.
- Enough text at each level for a school year.
- Follow-up that does not crowd out reading.
- A fixed place for reading in the timetable.
- Room for your school's own texts.
The sections below take each criterion in turn, with the research behind it and the question to ask a vendor. If you are not yet sure which kind of tool you need, start with Best English Reading Platforms for ESL Schools. First, a short description of the product you are comparing against.
What Foxton Readers is, according to Foxton Books
According to Foxton Books' website, as checked in October 2026, Foxton Readers is a series of graded books for ESL and EAL learners from beginner to advanced level. The website says the books can also be used with native speakers of primary and secondary school age. They come in print and on an online platform for schools.
The website says the online platform has seven levels, from Starter to Level 6. Each level has a fixed number of headwords and a CEFR band, as the table shows.
| Level | Headwords | CEFR band |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 300 | A1 |
| Level 1 | 400 | A1/A2 |
| Level 2 | 600 | A2/B1 |
| Level 3 | 900 | B1 |
| Level 4 | 1,300 | B1/B2 |
| Level 5 | 1,700 | B2 |
| Level 6 | 2,300 | B2/C1 |
The website also lists the following:
- Over 700 comprehension, grammar and vocabulary quizzes.
- A read-along feature for pronunciation and fluency.
- A homework system, to which teachers can add their own files and activities.
- Dashboards for students, teachers and school leaders, showing reading levels, quiz results and reading time.
- Levelled books for native English speakers, aligned with UK Book Bands and the EYFS framework.
Foxton Books offers a free trial.
The strength is plain from that list. The level system is published, with a headword count for every level, and follow-up and reports come built in. A school that wants self-paced reading with homework and tracking has a lot to work with.
Criterion 1: a level system you can check
A level label is useful only if pupils can read the texts at that level. Hu and Nation (2000) studied 66 university students in New Zealand reading fiction. They concluded that unassisted reading for pleasure needs about 98% of the words to be known.
Treat that figure as a guide, not a law. Kremmel, Indrarathne, Kormos and Suzuki (2023) repeated the study with 104 adult learners in Sri Lanka and could not fully replicate the results. Neither study involved school pupils.
A published headword count per level lets you compare levels across products. Ask every alternative for the same: how many words each level assumes, which grammar it uses, and which CEFR band it matches. Then test a sample page. Day and Bamford (2002) suggest that more than one or two unknown words per page may make a text too hard for beginners. For intermediate learners, they allow up to five.
How Is a Story Levelled to the CEFR? explains what lies behind a level label, and what to ask when a vendor gives you one.
Criterion 2: enough text at each level
Day and Bamford (2002) suggest a book a week as probably the minimum amount of reading to gain the benefits of extensive reading and build a habit. They call this realistic at all levels, because books written for beginners are very short.
So count texts, not levels. A school year with 36 reading weeks needs about 36 texts for each pupil at the pupil's level. A class that spans two levels needs that number at both. Ask any vendor for a count of texts at each level you teach, not a total for the whole library.
Worked example (invented for illustration)
A Grade 7 class has 12 pupils reading at A2 and 14 at B1. At a book a week over 36 weeks, each group needs about 36 texts it can read. A library of 400 titles sounds large. If only 20 of them sit at A2, the A2 pupils will run out before the end of the second term.
Choice matters as well as quantity. Day and Bamford (2002) argue that learners should choose what they read and be free to stop a book they do not enjoy. That needs more texts at each level than a strict book a week. What Should a Reading Pack Contain? gives a fuller checklist for judging a set of texts.
Criterion 3: follow-up that does not crowd out reading
Quizzes and homework are useful, but they are not the reading. Day and Bamford (2002) write that extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions, because reading is its own reward. They accept follow-up for good reasons: to see what a pupil understood, to track how much they read, and to link reading to the rest of the curriculum.
The practical test is time. Ask how long the follow-up for one text takes a pupil, and compare it with the time spent reading. If the quiz and the homework take longer than the reading, the balance has tipped away from extensive reading.
Foxton Readers offers a lot of follow-up, which suits a school that wants homework built around each book. A school that wants lighter checks should ask any alternative how short its check after reading can be, and whether teachers can switch parts of it off.
Criterion 4: a fixed place for reading in the timetable
Where reading happens matters as much as what is read. Jeon and Day (2016) combined 49 studies with 5,919 participants. Extensive reading run as part of the curriculum showed the highest mean effect of the types they compared. They also found a higher effect for adults than for children and adolescents.
In a library-and-homework model, each teacher decides when reading happens. Some schools want that freedom. Others want reading in scheduled sessions, so that it happens whether or not a teacher remembers to set it.
Ask any alternative two questions. Can reading run as scheduled class sessions, online or in school? Can a leader see, by class, who read this week? How to Plan a Reading Program Across a School Year shows how to fix the weekly slot.
Criterion 5: room for your school's own texts
A library written for every school cannot mention your town or your syllabus. According to Foxton Books' website, teachers can add their own resources, files and activities to homework on the platform. That is useful, but it is not the same as adding your own stories as levelled texts with their own checks.
If local texts matter to you, ask every vendor, Foxton Books included, whether the school can write or adapt its own stories, level them, and attach the same follow-up as the library texts. How to Turn Your Curriculum Texts Into Reading Units describes the work this involves.
| Criterion | Question for the vendor | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Level system | How many headwords, and which CEFR band, at each level? | A published figure for every level, and a sample page your pupils can read |
| Text volume | How many texts are there at each level we teach? | At least one a week for each pupil, all year, with some choice |
| Follow-up | How long does the check after one text take? | Less time than reading the text |
| Timetable | Can reading run as scheduled class sessions? | Yes, or a clear plan for when pupils will read |
| Own texts | Can we add our own stories at a level, with checks? | Yes, with the same follow-up as the library texts |
How iRead handles this
iRead is a paid platform in which a pack is a CEFR-levelled set of stories, and every story, quiz and game is levelled from A1 to C2. Schools can run global packs from the iRead library and school packs written by their own teachers in iRead's story editor. School packs get the same games and quizzes attached automatically. Students enrol themselves in live sessions, online or in school, and attendance is recorded automatically. School leaders see levels reached, words retained and stories completed by class, grade and term.
The core principle: Judge any reading library by whether your pupils can read its texts, and whether there are enough of them. Everything else comes second.
See it in iRead: iRead runs CEFR-levelled story packs, from the iRead library or written by your own teachers, with live reading sessions and quizzes. Schools can ask for a free pilot with one class.
See the iRead programKey takeaway
Foxton Readers suits a school that wants a levelled library with homework and reports. If you want something different, name the change, then test every option on the same five criteria with your own pupils.
Frequently asked questions
Is Foxton Readers suitable for EFL learners?
According to Foxton Books' website, Foxton Readers is written for ESL and EAL learners from beginner to advanced level, with seven levels matched to CEFR bands from A1 to B2/C1. Test a sample page with your own pupils to confirm the fit for your classes.
What matters most when comparing reading libraries?
Whether your pupils can read the texts, and whether there are enough of them. Day and Bamford (2002) suggest a book a week as probably the minimum. Count the texts at each level you teach, then test a sample page with a few real pupils.
Should a school replace its reading library or add to it?
Decide from the gap. If pupils run out of texts at one level, adding texts at that level may be enough. If reading rarely happens because no time is set aside for it, a different way of running the program may matter more than new books.
How do we compare level systems from different publishers?
Ask each publisher for the headword count and CEFR band of every level. Then put a page from each level in front of a few pupils and count the unknown words. A level label tells you little until your own pupils have read a page.
Should pupils take a quiz after every book?
A short check helps a teacher see who read what. Day and Bamford (2002) note that extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions, because reading is its own reward. Keep any check much shorter than the reading it follows.
Sources
- Foxton Books (n.d.). Foxton ELT Graded Readers. Foxton Readers website (checked October 2026). www.foxtonreaders.com/
- Foxton Books (n.d.). Foxton ELT Readers: online graded readers platform. Foxton Readers Online website (checked October 2026). online.foxtonreaders.com/
- Foxton Books (n.d.). Foxton Readers: ESL/EAL learners. Foxton Readers Online website (checked October 2026). online.foxtonreaders.com/act/about
- Hu, M. H.-C., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
- Kremmel, B., Indrarathne, B., Kormos, J., & Suzuki, S. (2023). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension: Replicating Hu and Nation (2000). Language Learning, 73(4), 1127-1163. doi.org/10.1111/lang.12622
- Day, R. R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 14(2), 136-141. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66761
- Jeon, E.-Y., & Day, R. R. (2016). The effectiveness of ER on reading proficiency: A meta-analysis. Reading in a Foreign Language, 28(2), 246-265. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66901