Schoolreaders, the national children’s literacy charity, has launched its RACE FOR READING campaign to raise vital funds to support more primary school children with their reading skills. Even before the pandemic, one in four children was leaving primary school unable to read well and school closures have worsened the situation considerably, with disadvantaged children suffering the most. According to the Sunday Times*, 1 in 3 children is now expected to leave primary education with poor literacy skills.
Jane Whitbread, Founder of Schoolreaders comments: “If a child leaves primary school not reading properly, it can have life-long negative consequences as they are unable to fully access their secondary education.”
The charity is encouraging as many people as possible to sign up to the RACE FOR READING campaign and help make a world of difference to children’s literacy by asking people to undertake a sponsored challenge of any form such as running, walking, cycling or swimming to help achieve a collective virtual circumnavigation of the globe (or 25,000 miles) in 80 days.
Schoolreaders provides volunteers to primary schools to give one-to-one reading sessions with children and is now needed more than ever, with one in ten primary schools in this country asking for Schoolreaders volunteers. The charity has seen a huge rise in volunteer registrations this year and has enough volunteers to be supporting more than 20,000 children with a one-to-one reading session each week.
Jane Whitbread added: “Before the initial lockdown almost 13,000 children were receiving a one-to-one reading support session every week from a Schoolreaders volunteer, and our service is needed more than ever because so many children have fallen behind. Please join us by signing up to our RACE FOR READING campaign and help us to support thousands more children with their reading skills.”
RACE FOR READING has been generously sponsored by our corporate partner, Tritax Big Box, the UK’s leading investment company focused on larger scale logistics real estate.
Colin Godfrey – CEO, Fund Management, Tritax Big Box adds: “We are delighted to sponsor RACE FOR READING 2021. Improving reading skills is key to bringing important social and economic benefits to the communities in which we own logistics buildings. As a partner to Schoolreaders charity, we have seen first-hand the extent to which they are playing an integral role in helping to achieve that, and improving the long-term prospects of many of the UK’s most disadvantaged children.”
To find out more about the campaign, please visit www.raceforreading.org
