News from: ABC to read (Assisting Berkshire Children to Read)
With school closures, a lot of ABC to Read’s volunteers paused their usual face-to-face support in primary schools. Our mission to help children access good literacy skills continues and there has never been a more important time for our work so we have adapted our support to offering virtual reading sessions so that we can still be here for children both in schools and at home.
We know that one-to-one, face to face, teaching is the best method to support children, particularly if they have barriers to their learning, but we have been able to adjust to online sessions. These sessions are held via Zoom and, as with our usual face-to-face support, all safeguarding measures are strictly adhered to. Our volunteers are trained to ensure children’s safety online (and offline) is their number one priority; they all hold clear enhanced DBS checks as well as having completed training in safeguarding.
Many, many children will have fallen behind with their reading during school closures and ABC to read is very well-positioned to step in and help these children to catch up with vital reading support.
Schools can get in touch: Schools can contact us at info@abctoread.org.uk to benefit from this support. Following on from this initial contact we obtain signed permission slips from each parent and arrange the virtual sessions until such time as we are able to resume our usual face-to-face support.
If you’d like to volunteer: If volunteers would like to be trained as an ABC to read mentor, then please contact us at info@abctoread.org.uk. With your help we can mitigate the effects of Covid-19 on our children’s education. The Department for Education has already acknowledged that one-to-one or small-group tutoring will be crucial in getting children’s reading back up to speed.
Further information: Watch testimonials about the work ABC to Read does on its YouTube Channel, which also includes lots of videos of volunteers reading stories!