Adults have a part to play in keeping enthusiasm for reading alive amongst children - Chris Dowd

When I retired from the University of Sheffield about 15 years ago, I wasn’t quite ready to retire my mind or my passion for teaching and learning.

I’d heard about a charity called Schoolreaders from a friend and decided to find out more.

Volunteering with a charity which helps children with accompanied reading in the classroom seemed like the perfect new challenge. I registered as a volunteer and was matched with a small school close to my home in north Derbyshire.

Through my work with Schoolreaders over six years I became acutely aware of the literacy problem facing not just our region’s schools, but society as a whole.

Children are failing to reach required standards partly because of insufficient one-to-one reading time with adults. A quarter of all 11-year-olds are leaving primary school with reading skills below the expected level.

That leads to problems in adulthood – one in seven adults are functionally illiterate and may struggle to read a medicine packet, bus timetables, or fill in job applications.

The statistics shocked me and I was determined to do my bit to help set children up to enjoy a lifetime of learning.

My own experience underpins research by Schoolreaders which reveals that 94 per cent of children increased their reading confidence following volunteer reading sessions. 72 per cent benefited from spending time with a positive role model.

The children weren’t the only ones to benefit.

I dedicated an hour per day, four days a week, to working with between five to eight pupils each session. I formed some fantastic relationships with them. I was known as Chris, never Mr Dowd. It was a stable constant in my life for many years and richly rewarding.

Being a lot older, you know more about life – you have more stories, knowledge on history, science - it’s all interesting stuff you can share with the children.

By reading in schools, you broaden out your own knowledge as well as the knowledge of the child you’re reading with.

I always had brilliant relationships with the teachers – they treated me and called me one of the family. I used to come home high as a kite, telling stories to my wife like ‘guess what I learnt today?’ I always had something lovely to tell.

It was such a joy and so fulfilling.

Reading is nowhere near as important to children as it used to be and that pains me.

There are many reasons for this - society has changed but there are still lots of children out there who aren’t even getting a chance to read at home. Some just need a bit of extra support in the classroom.

Charities like Schoolreaders do an incredible job in promoting the importance of reading, particularly reading for pleasure.

I really believe that reading is the cornerstone of children’s learning and wellbeing, and it has been proven that reading for pleasure is one of the single biggest indicators of a child’s future success.

Poor literacy is a major societal problem contributing to homelessness, poor physical and mental health, and even criminality. It’s incredible to think that something as simple as reading at a young age can have such a profound impact on one’s life chances.

It was Word Book Day on Thursday and anyone with Facebook or social media will have undoubtedly seen proud parents and grandparents posting photographs of excited youngsters dressed up as Where’s Wally or Matilda. If only we could bottle this enthusiasm and ensure that books generate such a buzz for the other 364 days a year.

It’s up to us as adults to play our part and keep this unbridled enthusiasm alive. Whether that’s by reading at home with children, volunteering with charities like Schoolreaders or simply making books available in the home by picking up a few second-hand classics from a local charity shop or taking a trip to the local library.

So many people say they don’t know how they’d find time to do something like Schoolreaders. If you are lucky enough, like me, to have a few hours a week to spare, what could be a more impactful use of your time?

Schoolreaders has more than 3,000 volunteers in England but needs more people to help deliver weekly free one-to-one reading sessions.

As a retiree, I accept it’s easier for me but all it takes is an hour or two a week and you get so much out of it.

For more information visit www.schoolreaders.org.

Chris Dowd is a retired nurse and senior lecturer who worked at the University of Sheffield.