Learning to read is really difficult

Dawn Geddes learns about Read Easy UK, a charity helping to change the stigma about illiteracy.

LITERACY is a skill that many of us take for granted, but sadly 2.4 million adults in England alone cannot, or can barely, read.

Not being able to read can have a huge impact on a person's life.

In fact, non-readers are five times more likely to be unemployed, and four times more likely to experience long-term unemployment.

One organisation that is working hard to change these devastating statistics is Read Easy UK.

This national charity, which was set up in 2010, provides free reading coaching for adults by trained volunteers through locally run, affiliated volunteer groups.

"Our mission is to support, organise and train volunteers to set up groups that are affiliated to Read Easy UK, so that those individual groups can then support adults to learn to read," Chief Executive Ginny Williams-Ellis explains.

"Then a coach from that group will meet the reader twice a week and work for half an hour at a time, taking them through a structured reading programme."