14000 adults in Ealing can barely read or can’t read at all. That means they can’t read a letter from their child’s school, fill out a form, use an ATM, check train times or any of the other things we take for granted.
Read Easy Ealing is a local charity dedicated to changing lives by providing free, one-to-one reading tuition for local people, delivered by local volunteers. Our vision is for all adults to have the literacy skills they need to realise their potential and to live life to the full. People who have difficulties with reading are sometimes too embarrassed to admit their difficulties and very few feel able to join an adult education class, due to previous experiences of failure at school. We offer a much more individual, accessible and, community approach to helping adults learn to read.
Read Easy works by matching trained volunteer local reading coaches one-to-one with non or beginner Readers. They meet twice a week for 30 minutes in a public but private space, such as a library or Questors, and work through a phonics-based reading programme, “Turning Pages”, that has been specifically designed for adults by the Shannon Trust. It is suitable for people who have learning difficulties and disabilities, people for whom English is a second language and people who just didn’t learn to read at school. The coach/reader relationship is open-ended; typical relationships last for between 18 and 24 months.
In the words of one recent graduate who learned to read in her fifties: “It’s opened my world.”
If you would like to learn more about the Read Easy then please come along and talk to us at our stand.
