Read Easy UK helps adults learn to read by providing them with free, confidential, one-to-one coaching from trained volunteers. There are nearly 2.5m English adults who never learnt to read properly at school.
By helping people to reach a reasonable level of literacy, Read Easy aims also to help them grow in confidence and self-esteem, move on to access other learning and qualifications, improve their employment opportunities and take a fuller and more effective part in family and home life, their local communities and society as a whole. As one Read Easy new reader put it, "I feel part of society for the first time in my life!"
Read Easy UK is the umbrella charity that enables volunteers to set up affiliated Read Easy groups to provide this service in their own communities. Each volunteer group is supported by Read Easy UK’s paid, part-time Regional Advisers and free-lance Trainers.
Affiliated Read Easy groups recruit and organise local volunteers to work as reading coaches with ‘new readers’ on a confidential, one-to-one basis. Each reading pair is given a choice of approved venues where they can meet at a time to suit themselves and work without being overlooked by others, whilst always having someone else on the premises. Reading pairs meet twice a week, for just half an hour at a time, and work through a phonics-based reading manual at their own pace until they have reached a satisfactory reading level. For those who wish, this course can be followed by a secondary stage of literacy support that includes writing.
