Word Up!
NICK PELLING & HELEN MURPHY find out about the town’s new adult literacy group.
Do you know an adult who struggles to read fluently? The difficulty is really not unusual. A recent national survey estimated that 7.1 million adults in England could be described as having poor literacy skills and 2.4 million can barely read at all. Obviously, adults in this situation will find their life chances seriously curtailed; you only have to think of trying to apply for a job or simply navigating the internet to realise that many of life’s roads will be blocked by difficulties with words.
Hastings has many people in this category, but a new branch of the charity, Read Easy, has recently been set up in the town, and it aims to offer help to struggling readers. Read Easy offers something quite unique: one-to-one tuition, with no costs, no deadlines, and no ‘pass or fail’ style judgements.
UP AND RUNNING
We recently caught up with the Team Leader of the charity, Rob Hiley, to learn a little more about it. He told us about the origins of the organisation. The founder was Ginny Williams-Ellis, who first offered one-to-one literacy help to inmates in Dorchester prison. She found that this approach minimised any embarrassment or awkwardness and worked really well. She realised, however, that once people left prison the help simply stopped. And so, in 2011, she began the process of creating localised groups around the country. There are now about 80 affiliated groups. Rob explained that in order to set up a branch in Hastings, for the East Sussex wider area, an enormous amount of work, training and admin had to be completed. But, now they are very much up and running.
Although Read Easy is always looking for volunteers, the real issue at this early stage is finding ways to reach out to struggling readers. Inevitably, people can be embarrassed to admit they have a problem, and maybe, if schools and other institutions have already failed them, as Rob says, “there will be a lack of trust or a shortage of self-confidence.” And some people find ways of surviving in the literate world, and their coping strategies can also incline them not to come forward. Read Easy hopes to offer a non-intimidating approach with the sessions only lasting 30 minutes, twice a week and the venue being “a private space in a public place.” There are no classrooms, as these would probably only reignite memories of a difficult school time.
SLIPPING THROUGH THE NET
There are many complex reasons for relatively weak literacy. Perhaps inevitably, it tends to be connected to poverty levels. In a table laying out income deprivation levels of 316 local authority areas in England, Hastings is 13th from the bottom. There are undoubtedly serious literacy problems here, but accurate figures are hard to come by and so it almost feels like a hidden problem. But, poverty does not explain everything. As Rob says, there are “many ways to slip through the educational net.”
Perhaps the most recently notable example of someone slipping through the school net without ever really learning to read effectively is Jay Blades, of Repair Shop fame. When he was at school nobody bothered to test him for dyslexia: he just blagged his way through. At the age of 31, he was diagnosed with the reading age of an 11-year-old. But, he sought help, and turned to Read Easy. His reading journey is movingly and brilliantly captured on a BBC documentary, which is well worth a watch on bbciplayer.
Read Easy is really only just getting started in Hastings. If you think you can help or help someone else in any way, or just want more information, the contact details are below.
For more information visit readeasy.org.uk/groups/read-easy-east-sussex.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply