A reflection on volunteering

It’s magical to see children start to love the fact that when they turn a page they are in charge of discovering what happens in the story

I got in touch with Wandsworth Council because I wanted to give some of my time to something useful. I picked Learn to Love to Read because I used to be a journalist and still work in the creative industry, and reading has always been very important to me. I had seen my son’s whole outlook on the world and his ability to communicate change when he started reading. 

When I looked at the information about your charity, I was quite stunned by how many children don’t have the full opportunity to learn this skill, and how many do not get reading support outside of the classroom. It’s fundamentally important to help kids feel comfortable with words and the way the express themselves because it can be life changing – and so I wanted to volunteer to help this very important work the charity does.

This is my fifth term of being a volunteer. I joined as an online volunteer during Covid at a time when all the charity’s interventions were online and have since stayed online as it fits better with my work commitments.

I am not sure I had a clear idea what volunteering would be like because, at first, I wasn’t sure if I had the skills to be useful. But when I started talking to the charity, I could see how passionate everyone was about it. My hope was that giving time and attention would prove possibly as valuable as the actual hard reading skills. One of the wonderful things about the induction and the experienced volunteer I was given as a mentor was how brilliant everyone was at emphasising that point, which gave me the confidence to be better at it more quickly.

The experience has exceeded my expectations, although in some ways I feel that is a very selfish thing to say because this is for the children not me! I have loved being a part of the amazing work of the charity, been inspired by everyone I have spoken to there, and I have really enjoyed the kids and the families I have got to interact with.

It has been totally inspiring to watch the children progress, to watch a child realise the power they’ve got when they start understanding words and start being able to read with confidence. You can also see week to week the increased confidence of the children in their interaction with me as an adult.  In the training we were told it’s not about the success they achieve it’s about recognising and praising the effort they put in. And as a volunteer I am lucky to not feel the weight of responsibility for their progress because obviously there is a school carefully managing that. I enjoy the responsibility of giving encouragement and helping them enjoy books.

For the first few terms I worked with two brothers from a Muslim family where English was not the home language. It was delightful to see the younger boy’s growing enthusiasm for reading and his increasing ability to focus. Just to see the interaction between the two boys as the younger boy got more confident was really interesting, how they started to listen to each other read and look over each other’s shoulders.

Since then I have been reading with another lovely young lad. His English-speaking family are closely involved and at first I did question why the charity would be connected. But the lovely feedback from his family made me realise that they value the time we spend, and I realised there can be any number of reasons children need reading support. It is a complete delight to see his progress. I can see that concentrating can sometimes be difficult for him, but with gentle encouragement he always gets stuck in, and I have hit that lovely point where he is on an exponential curve of progress – he is just soaking information up now and reading so well. Over the sessions he has been joined by his mum and his dad, his gran and his auntie – I am privileged to have that little slice of his life each week.

With all the children I have seen them progress to ‘love to read’, and it’s joyful. It’s magical to see children start to love the fact that when they turn a page they are in charge of discovering what happens in the story. I have seen their progression from stumbling reading to more confident reading, starting to work things out for themselves and get to a conclusion and be happy with it. 

I have felt massively supported by the charity all the way through. The training is good and detailed, and comes with this nice wrapper of reassurance that, as a volunteer, our time and attention is as valuable as learning the technical information. The helpline has been fantastic - I know I can always get hold of someone if I need anything.

Volunteering helps me look beyond my own world a little bit more and I am grateful to the charity for giving me that opportunity in a very safe, structured, productive environment. To anyone thinking of volunteering, I would say seize it with both hands and trust yourself that if you are interested and committed and open minded and compassionate you will be fantastic at it. Don’t worry about needing to have all the skills. It is an incredibly important thing you will be doing, helping kids have a superpower like reading that will have such a big impact on the rest of their lives.