Banbury reading scheme giving children a love of books needs more volunteers

The assisted reading for children (ARCh) scheme pairs a volunteer with a school pupil for one-to-one enjoyment of books.

ARCh has been praised by teachers for allowing pupils who have had problems to catch up with their reading and improve their classroom performance.

Now it is providing a new strand of encouragement in its partnership with the football club which wants to expand its work in the community.

Banbury coordinator, former headteacher Jeremy Turner, said: "ARCh and BUFC are approaching schools to offer a package of football coaching and reading support. This is proving quite successful but we need new volunteers to fill the places that schools are asking for.

"Our next training will be in May where we hope to see some Banbury-based people so we can support the Banbury schools who are waiting for our ARCh reading volunteers."

Mr Turner said children enjoy their time with the volunteers, becoming better readers and gaining confidence.

“Many of our volunteers are professional people - some are retired. Some are from the world of education but not all. Some are part-time workers. They range in age from 28 to 80," he said.

“We ask our volunteers to commit to a year’s service after their training. It helps continuity for the school and the children but many carry on for longer than a year. One has been volunteering at a village school for 15 years.

“We ask them to commit to going into a school twice a week for an hour-and-a-half during which time they help three children. So each child gets an hour of one-to-one contact a week for a year.

“It’s quite a large chunk of individual reading time with an adult. As well as reading there’s lots of language development; they play games, card games, draughts, chess, Connect 4 and it’s really developing not just the reading but a sense of communication, confidence and self esteem.”

Class teachers see the benefits to the children, not least a new love of books. Teachers evaluating pupils’ improvement gave scores of 99 per cent for confidence in reading, 98 per cent for self-esteem, 98 per cent for reading performance and 96 per cent for reading comprehension.

Training to be an ARCH volunteer is a nine-hour course spread over two days.

Those who have become volunteers report great support from the charity, the satisfaction of seeing how children's reading improves and how much they flourish with the experience of more fluent reading.

If you would like to help ARCH - Assisted Reading for Children - call 01869 320380 or email info@archoxfordshire