Rupa Huq Impressed with Work of Local Reading Charity

Ealing Central and Acton MP recently paid a visit to Read Easy

Rupa Huq MP meets Read Easy volunteers in Ealing

February 23, 2023

Ealing Central and Acton MP Rupa Huq has met with reading coaching charity Read Easy in Ealing earlier this month to learn more about the service they offer.

Read Easy Ealing is a local charity dedicated to changing lives by providing free, one-to-one reading tuition for local people. Their vision is for all adults in the borough of Ealing to have the literacy skills they need. Learning to read improves employment opportunities, gives confidence to take a more active role within the community and allows individuals to connect with their peers and family members.

Catherine Jaquiss, founder of the Ealing Branch, stated, “We were established in April 21 and are currently working with 30 readers. By the end of our second year we’re expecting the number to have grown to 40. Our reading pairs meet in 16 different venues across Ealing and surrounding boroughs. We average 5 referrals a month; we take referrals from agencies and charities across the borough and from potential readers, their friends, or their families.”

At the charity’s quarterly coaches’ get-together, Dr Huq talked with volunteer reading coaches who offer one-to-one tuition to adults who can’t read or have very limited reading ability, heard about some of the learners’ recent successes and was shown the various phonics-based resources that are used by the organisation.

The Ealing Central and Acton MP said she was “concerned to learn that more than 6% of UK adults are unable to read or have limited reading ability which equates to 13,600 adults in Ealing who seriously struggle with reading.”

She added, “Reading is an invaluable skill that is required for most tasks in our everyday life and many of us take it for granted. Simple errands can soon become a nightmare for someone who can’t read as tasks like using a cashpoint or reading allergy information require literacy proficiency. It is essential that everybody is given the opportunity to learn to read.”

Most people who have difficulties with reading are too embarrassed to admit their difficulties and very few feel able to join an adult education class due to previous experience of failure at school. That’s why Read Easy Ealing aims to offer a much more accessible, community-based and individualised approach to helping adults learn to read.

The scheme works by matching local trained volunteer reading coaches with non or beginner readers on a one-to-one basis. They meet twice a week for 30 minutes in a public but private space and work through a phonics-based reading programme that has been specifically designed for adults by the Shannon Trust. It is suited to people who have learning difficulties and disabilities, people for whom English is a second language people who just didn’t learn to read at school. The timeline for learning to read is open-ended.

The charity relies on volunteers and the MP is encouraging anybody who has the time to get in touch with Read Easy to help teach a life-changing skill.

If you are interested in learning to read or becoming a reading coach with Read Easy Ealing, find out more here.