Online reading tutors for disadvantaged children

Aim

Struggling young readers are falling behind. You can help them by supporting TutorMate, the online reading platform.

Our online reading platform, TutorMate, connects disadvantaged children with reading volunteers. With your support we can help even more struggling young readers to catch up.

The need for reading support is more critical than ever

We believe in the power of literacy to transform lives. A child who can read is set up for life. Not just because they do better at school and have better job prospects, but because they are happier and more confident about their place in the world. Take a moment to imagine what your own life would be like if you couldn’t read road signs, food labels, forms, maps, the text messages on your phone. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

In 2018, a shocking 36% of 11-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds in England left primary school unable to read English well. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has only widened this literacy gap.

The closure of schools is having a significant impact on educational inequalities, with children from families with more resources spending 30% more time on home learning than those from disadvantaged families (Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 2020). Children from the poorest households are less likely to have access to private tutoring, laptops or the internet and, even before COVID-19, were less likely to own books or be read to regularly.

The children who need the most help are falling further behind each day and will struggle to catch up as the schools reopen.

TutorMate helps close the literacy gap

Our TutorMate reading platform - the only one of its kind in the UK - lets disadvantaged 5- to 6-year-old children have weekly ‘virtual’ reading sessions with a designated volunteer. Our volunteers are people like you, working in businesses across the UK, who jump at the opportunity to make a difference, flexibly and easily, to transform a life.

From their workplace or home, volunteers use a sophisticated internet platform, and a voice connection, to link with their paired pupil. They read stories and play games that build fluency, comprehension, phonics and, most importantly, foster reading confidence and enjoyment.

We target children in disadvantaged communities, where funding cuts mean that teachers are unable to spend enough 1:1 time reading with the children who need extra help, even under normal circumstances. Schools often find it difficult to recruit enough volunteers for face-to-face reading schemes, and the logistics in the classroom can be challenging. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its aftermath, will further limit the number of visitors schools are able to have on site.

TutorMate addresses these challenges by using technology to help more volunteers read regularly with more children, more easily. Our impact evaluation by the National Literacy Trust demonstrates that the programme works (see below).

How your support can help disadvantaged children 

Since 2018, we have been running TutorMate in schools in London, Leeds and Bradford. Our partner teachers have told us that as the schools return, the need for volunteer reading support will be greater than ever. We have a waiting list of schools who want to join our programme.

If you’re able to support this appeal financially, thank you. It costs us £417 to support a child for a year, and we raise £300 of this from our generous business partners. We rely on support from people like you for the remaining £117. This helps to cover the cost of equipment and technical support for schools, maintenance of our platform, evaluation and research, and enhanced DBS checks for our volunteers.  If we reach our appeal target of £4,000, your generosity will have enabled 34 more children to benefit from TutorMate.

Please help us to make a difference to more young lives at this challenging time. 

We are also looking for as many new volunteers as possible! We would love to hear from companies who can support TutorMate with funding and volunteers. Our tutors find the experience extremely rewarding;

“My favourite 30 minutes of the week! I'm helping Connor with his reading and am finding TutorMate really easy to use and - most importantly Connor loves it. He loves reading but doesn't read much out of school or have many books at home… I've seen his confidence increase in all sorts of ways... it is really bringing him out of himself. I was initially sceptical of this not being 'face to face' but it works surprisingly well and means that there is no wasted time getting to and from the school.” – Roger, Janus Henderson Investors

If you think your organisation, or the businesses your friends and family work for might be interested in this unique, virtual-volunteering opportunity, do contact us via our website or email [email protected]. 

Who are we?

Innovations for Learning (IfL), a registered charity, launched TutorMate in the UK in 2018. We aim to improve the literacy skills of disadvantaged children, with particular focus on reading confidence and enjoyment.  

Our Chief Executive, Emma Bell, worked with our sister charity, IFL Inc, in the US to establish the TutorMate programme in Atlanta, Georgia. She then returned to her native England to establish Innovations for Learning UK and adapt TutorMate for the UK-English context. We have been working with 31 schools across London, Bradford and Leeds, with the help of nearly 600 corporate volunteers from 34 companies including Google, John Lewis, KPMG, Sage and Salesforce.

Today, through TutorMate, Innovations for Learning provides the only global, volunteer-led, technology-enabled, remote reading support programme of its kind. 

You can find out more and contact us at www.innovationsforlearning.org

This project successfully funded on 23rd July 2020