Chapter One transforms children’s futures by giving them one-to-one reading support at the time when they need it the most: at the very start of their education journey. In England 40% of 11-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds leave primary school not reading at the expected standard (DfE 2023) and the cost-of-living crisis and the legacy of Covid means struggling readers are falling even further behind.
Through their Online Reading Volunteers programme, struggling early readers aged between 5 and 7 years are paired with a reading support volunteer from one of their partner companies. Using Chapter One’s bespoke online platform and a voice connection only, the pairs ‘meet’ together for 30 minutes a week during the school day across an entire academic year. Together they read stories from their library of 200 texts and play a range of word games to develop key literacy skills.
